Ilka Scobie
Artlyst
A pioneer of European Pop
art, Mimmo Rotella’s 150 work survey focuses on his early pieces from 1953 –
1964. Works of his contemporaries like Andy Warhol, Piero Manzoni, Cy Twombley
and a signature mirrored portrait by Michelangelo Pistoletto add an interesting
historical context to the beautifully curated exhibition.
After returning to Rome in
1952 from the American Midwest, where he studied under a Fulbright grant,
Rotella experienced what he described as a “Zen moment.” “After two years of
crises, it was like an illumination. This would be the new language that I
needed to come up with,” he explained in 1954. He was describing his intuition
of tearing advertising posters directly from walls, specifically in Rome’s
Piazza Popolo area where his studio (and that of many other artists) was
located.
Viewing the advertisements
in a new urban context, his initial abstract experiments with torn poster
collages transmuted to a more recognizable style, featuring movie stars and
consumer products. While ripping and layering poster fragments, Rotella
deconstructed his canvases to replicate peeling billboards. At the same time,
he also experimented with sound poetry, which he stayed actively involved with
throughout his long career.
His distinctive vision drew
international attention. In 1957, he showed at London’s ICA, followed by
participation in a group show in the 1961 Museum of Modern Art’s “The Art of
Assemblage” in New York. Working with French artists Pierre Restany, Yves
Klein, Arman and Jean Tinguely, he moved to Paris and was part of the “Noveau
Realisme” group. He represented Italy in the 33rd Venice Biennale of 1964.
Rotella’s decollages are
actual collages, drawn from materials gathered on the streets themselves. By
disassociating and dissembling commercial images, Rotella adapted the Dadaist
term, “decollage” implying both provocation and a new perception of
communication. The “retro d’affiches’” were meant as urban artifacts, actually
emphasizing the backs of posters with grainy, glued backs in a limited palette. As the decollages became more realistic, the
retros reflected the actual physical surfaces, devoid of literal references.
Rotella continued working
until his death in 2006. He translated
manipulated posters to plexiglass sculptures and created large scale decollages
on sheet metal. Moving back to Milan in the eighties, he remarried and became a
familiar and glamorous figure at subsequent Venice Bienalles. He traveled to
Cuba where he worked, and designed an iconic Swatch watch in the nineties.
The works presented here
share a prescient vision, embracing, examining and manipulating popular
cultural iconography. Created more then
half a century ago, the masterful show feels surprisingly contemporary.
Prolific and passionate, Mimmo Rotella can be viewed as a true anthropological
poet.