Burri famously incorporated raw, unconventional materials like burlap and burned plastic into richly textured works that blur the boundary between painting and sculpture, much like Lo Giudice transforms a domestic mattress into a charged ritualistic artifact. His deep, visceral use of red in works like the Sacchi series shares the same raw emotional intensity and material honesty found in Totem Rosso.

Kiefer builds monumental mixed media works using unconventional materials such as lead, straw, and ash, creating heavily layered surfaces that carry totemic and mythological weight comparable to the ritualistic presence of Totem Rosso. His practice of elevating base materials into symbolic sculptural objects speaks directly to the conceptual and expressive ambition of Lo Giudice's piece.

Schnabel incorporates unconventional supports and materials, including velvet and broken plates, into bold vertically oriented works that merge painterly expressionism with sculptural assemblage, much like the Plexiglas encased mattress construction of Totem Rosso. His saturated color fields and charged, almost ceremonial surfaces share the same confident materiality and abstract expressiveness found in Lo Giudice's work.