MIMMO ROTELLA
Stripped Down Decollage to Fanciful Emulsions
Cardi Gallery in London is presenting ‘MIMMO ROTELLA. Beyond Décollage: Photo Emulsions and Artypos, 1963-1980’ in collaboration with the Mimmo Rotella Institute. The Italian artist Domenico “Mimmo” Rotella (Catanzaro, 1918 – Milan, 2006) is recognized as a pioneer of post-war art in Europe and an essential figure in the history and birth of the Pop Art movement. He was associated with different groups throughout his career, including the Ultra-Lettrist group and the Nouveau Réalisme. He was also the creator of a new collaging technique, which he labeled Décollage, where he created compositions made of torn street posters. This exhibit focuses on the lesser-known but still-riveting works that came after his Décollage period: his Photo Emulsions and Artypos. Rotella was one of the first artists to explore an innovative process of printing overlapping images onto surfaces such as canvas and paper, commonly associated with traditional art. His work’s cutting-edge approach to experimentation with photography provided a space to explore the potential and symbolic value of an image.
Having already become reasonably successful in the Italian art scene as an abstract painter early on in his career, he received a Fulbright scholarship in the early 1950s to travel to the US, where he was admired for his experimental poetry and art. During this time, he was introduced to other prominent figures in this artistic period, including Jackson Pollock, Yves Klein and Robert Rauschenberg. Décollage was born in 1953, upon his return to Rome, the fruit of a creative crisis and the artist’s sudden awareness of the potential of street posters. These works became a social commentary on post-war consumer culture in Italy. They differed from traditional collages because they were created by removing elements from a composition instead of adding them. To this day, Rotella is best known for these works, partly due to his decision to present them at the Venice Biennale in 1964, where he represented Italy.
The exhibition at Cardi Gallery presents the artist’s lesser-known but significant mixed media pieces that came after his famous Décollage period. In his Photo Emulsions, Rotella developed photographs on canvas using images from several sources, including magazines, films, erotica, advertising and his previous works. In his Artypos, he overlapped images with all types of popular media and advertisements. Like most of his other works, these are also a direct response to his era’s political and social environment, making him one of the leading representatives of the Mec-Art (Mechanical Art) movement.
To some, Rotella is seen as Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg’s Italian counterpart. However, despite his work’s lower market value, many would argue that Rotella’s art was innovative in a way that surpassed the other two artists due to his use of more mechanical methods and popular media and icons. Even though he was extremely active in the international art scene, he was based in Italy and France. The different artistic techniques that he invented throughout a career that spanned more than 50 years played a crucial role in unifying art history and popular culture and film.
Curated by Antonella Soldaini, ‘MIMMO ROTELLA. Beyond Décollage: Photo Emulsions and Artypos, 1963-1980’ is an exhibit you can’t miss. It is an enormous display featuring 74 of his works, and the first time these post-Décollage pieces have been displayed at such a massive level. The gallery will be closed from August 1st to 24th and its end date initially set for July is now extended until December 12th. If you are searching for intriguing and provocative art, take this opportunity to become acquainted with one of Pop Art’s most underappreciated pioneers.
