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The Brazilian artist Almir Mavignier, who lives in Germany, also exhibited at the Azimut gallery. He was close to the Group de Recherche d'Art Visuel. This was an international group whose attitude corresponded to that of Fontana: exploration, investigation, research. Mavignier's paintings consist entirely of fields of dots arranged in grids. The differently coloured dots of the Wuppertal work "Gelbe Linie" (Yellow Line) are set against a red-violet background. Colour gradients and structures are created by a strictly conceived optical mixture of colours. These are not visible at first glance, which stimulates and activates visual awareness. The three-dimensional nature of each dot gives Mavignier's paintings the appearance of a relief. The impasto application of the paint creates an interplay of light and shadow.

The need to radically rethink art was undisputed and a pressing challenge for young artists at the end of the 1950s: abstract, informal and tachist painting had run its course, criticised as too subjective and emotional, rigid and ultimately inflationary.

In Fontana's work, gestural painting was now replaced by a single gesture, which he presented with the utmost concentration, with its holes and cuts. It was clear and simple, precise and elegant, devoid of personal emotion, and it even contradicted the myth of the artist's personal signature. The artists around ZERO saw it as a new, visionary and, above all, authentic art.