Mimmo Rotella

Mimmo Rotella (1918-2006) was one of the most important Italian artists of the second half of the twentieth century. The works for which he is most famous are his characteristic décollage, created starting from 1953: derivation of the collage technique invented by the Cubists, this new artistic form saw Rotella take fragments of posters from the streets of Rome, then re-glued and reworked in the studio with the addition of pictorial elements. Many posters were film posters, featuring great film stars, an element that brings him closer to the current of Pop Art by Andy Warhol, whom he personally met during a period of stay in the United States. Another movement he joined was that of the French Nouveau Réalisme, the attendance of whose exponents led him to move to Paris in the 1960s. His fruitful artistic production is not limited to the famous décollage: over the course of his long career he has given life to various experiments which in many cases maintain a strong link with pop culture, from the Artypos (print proofs of posters applied on canvas) to the Blanks (advertising posters covered with monochrome sheets). In 2003 he designed a suggestive lamp-sculpture for Venini.