Mimmo Rotella

Mimmo Rotella (Catanzaro, 1918 – Milan, 2006) was one of the most innovative Italian artists of the second half of the twentieth century. His research has transformed the advertising posters torn from the streets into works capable of narrating modern life, cinema, consumption and the continuous overlapping of images in the city. Through décollage, Rotella questioned the traditional idea of painting: instead of building an image by adding color to the canvas, he began to look for it within already existing materials, worn out by time and the action of people.

From the beginning to the discovery of posters

Trained artistically in Naples, Rotella moved to Rome after the war and initially dedicated himself to pictorial experiences of an abstract orientation. In the early 1950s he stayed in the United States, where he came into contact with a lively cultural environment and also experimented with phonetic poetry, made up of sounds, rhythms and words removed from their usual use. This attention to the fragmentation of language would find a surprising parallel in his subsequent visual research.

After returning to Rome, he began to observe the posters covering the city walls. Their surface was already the result of a story: images glued one on top of the other, torn, discolored, interrupted by new postings. Rotella understood that that material could become painting without losing its urban origin. In the décollages, started in the 1950s, the posters were taken, torn and recomposed; what emerges is not a simple advertising image, but a web of fragments, colours, words and traces of time.

The urban poster has a history even before being chosen by the artist. The rain, the sun, the overlaps and the anonymous tears have already modified the surface; Rotella intervenes on a material that bears traces of collective gestures. The result is therefore not a simple appropriation of advertising images, but the encounter between an urban process and an artistic decision. Chance enters the work, without eliminating the responsibility of choice and composition. This characteristic makes each décollage particularly linked to the consistency of the paper and the concrete stratification of the fragments.

Décollage and Nouveau Réalisme

The term décollage indicates a process opposite, at least conceptually, to traditional collage. While in the collage the artist builds a composition by adding elements, Rotella works on subtraction and tear, allowing hidden layers to emerge. The gesture can be energetic or controlled, but it always retains a part of unpredictability: the paper reacts, breaks and reveals unexpected details. The city thus enters the work not as a painted subject, but as real material.

The difference compared to collage must not, however, be interpreted too rigidly: even after the tear, the artist can select, arrange and recompose the materials. The image arises from a sequence of actions in which subtraction and construction intertwine. Sometimes abstract letters and backgrounds prevail, other times recognizable faces or details emerge. The tension between readability and fragmentation is one of the most interesting qualities of his language. The viewer tries to reconstruct what is missing, but encounters a new image that does not coincide with any of the original posters.

In the 1960s, Rotella approached the Nouveau Réalisme, an international movement that proposed new ways of appropriating contemporary reality. The comparison with artists such as Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely and Jacques Villeglé highlighted the scope of his research. The images of cinema and advertising became increasingly recognisable: faces of actors, film titles and seductive figures emerge from the tears, creating a contrast between the charm of the icon and the fragility of its surface.

The relationship with cinema is particularly significant. Rotella doesn't just celebrate the stars: he shows how their image is multiplied, consumed and transformed by mass communication. The torn poster becomes a sort of collective memory, in which splendor and deterioration coexist.

Cinema provides Rotella with a repertoire of already famous faces, but above all a model for the circulation of images. A poster is created to attract attention and is quickly replaced by the next one; the artist interrupts this cycle and transforms an ephemeral material into an object to be observed slowly. The glossy beauty of the stars coexists with abrasions and lacerations, making clear the distance between the promise of the advertising image and the material destiny of the paper. In this contrast we recognize a reflection on time, not only on consumption.

Artypo, experiments and return to painting

The research did not stop at the décollage. From the mid-1960s Rotella experimented with artypos, compositions obtained using typographical proof sheets and superimposed images from printing processes. In these works the randomness of the combinations is combined with the mechanical language of reproduction, producing a reflection on the way in which modern society fabricates and disseminates images.

The artypo shift attention from the city wall to the industrial process of image production. The test sheets, normally destined to be discarded, retain overlaps and combinations that were not intended as definitive compositions. Rotella recognizes an aesthetic possibility in these technical accidents. His interest thus broadens from the visible consumption of advertising to its production: not only what the city displays, but also what the press produces before distribution. It is an important step to understand the variety of his work.

In the following years he developed further processes, including plastiform, blank and overpainting. In some works the surface is partially covered; in others the artist intervenes pictorially on already printed materials. His path therefore appears more complex than a simple technical invention: it is a continuous exploration of the relationships between image, matter, consumption and time.

Unique works, multiples and graphics

The variety of production makes it essential to distinguish an original décollage on posters, typographical work, silk-screen printing, lithography and photographic reproduction. The similarity of the image does not mean identity of the procedure. In décollages, the paper layers, the tears, the support and the material characteristics also count, which can be decisive for conservation and attribution. For published works, however, signature, numbering, publisher, technique and documentation are important.

For an original décollage, photography cannot fully convey reliefs, raised edges and differences between layers. Accurate documentation should therefore also show surface details, without digitally flattening the tears. Graphic editions instead require identifying the process and the possible relationship with a pre-existing image. A print that reproduces a décollage does not automatically coincide with the décollage itself; at the same time, an original graphic conceived for printing can have its own autonomy. Distinguishing these categories allows us to correctly present the work and appreciate the continuity of Rotella's research through different materials.

Rotella's legacy lies in having recognized artistic potential in what the city consumes and abandons. His images remind us that modernity is not only made up of new figures, but also of layers, erasures and residues: a visual history that continues to transform before our eyes.