Mimmo Rotella

• One of the artist’s most sought-after motifs
• Rotella is the undisputed master of décollage
• Works by the artist are held, amongst others, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome

Marilyn Monroe, the epitome of Hollywood glamour, defined an entire era. In the 1960s, there was
no face in the film industry more prominent than hers. For Mimmo, whose real name is Domenico Rotella, her poster face became a central motif during this period, one that he revisited time and again over the decades. As early as the 1950s, the Italian artist began experimenting in his ‘manifesti lacerati’ with the unique expressiveness and aesthetics of a damaged surface composed of found fragments. The posters, which hang in thick layers on advertising columns in both Milan and Paris, are collected by the artist and then reduced layer by layer until something convincingly new emerges from what appears to be an act of destruction. In his work with found materials, Rotella follows in the tradition of Cubism, the material paintings and collages of Kurt Schwitters, and the Parisian affichistes, who had been creating art from posters since the 1940s. It was Mimmo Rotella, however, who succeeded in granting décollage its own autonomous status, elevating it to an art form in its own right and imbuing it with the gestural power that defines his works today.