Mimmo Rotella

Domenico “Mimmo” Rotella (1918-2006) helped pioneer the postwar Nouveau Realistes’ exploration of the torn poster, with his richly textured collages composed mainly of glossy magazine imagery, movie posters and advertisements.

The second volume of the artist’s extended catalogue raisonné, this publication focuses on work created between 1962 and 1973 as Rotella continued with his décollage practice while becomingly increasingly interested in the printing process. The resulting artypos make use of overlapping photo emulsions on canvas to create compositions evocative of pop culture. With a keen focus on visual and cultural trends, Rotella’s work from this period of his career takes the iconography of the times and puts a unique interpretive spin on it.

This catalogue raisonné provides scholarly analysis and verification alongside gorgeous full-color reproductions of Rotella’s pieces.

This substantial overview on Nouveau Réaliste collage pioneer Mimmo Rotella (1918–2006) traces every stage of his career, from his first abstractions to pop-art works, with extensive detail on his décollage and poster works.

Presenting a selection of the décollages (torn posters) and retro d’affiches (untouched poster versos) of Nouveau Réaliste pioneer Mimmo Rotella (1918–2006) from the late ‘50s and early ’60s, this book situates these works in the artistic climate that helped foster them.

Divided into four volumes, the catalogue raisonné dedicated to Mimmo Rotella’s oeuvre looks at the career, spanning almost sixty years, of one of the great interpreters of Italian and international contemporary art. ?This first volume of the catalogue raisonné focuses on the period from 1944 to 1961.

Germano Celant, a celebrated art historian, critic, and theorist, has curated hundreds of exhibitions worldwide and published more than one hundred books and catalogs.

A vast selection of works that illustrate the richness of Mimmo Rotella's research, from 1954 to 2005. Unfolding in chronological order, this volume is divided into working periods, each focusing on one or more techniques highlighting the various stages of development of the artist's language. The catalogue examines the works related to each technique analysed, enriched with various documentation: invitations, books, magazines, newspapers, writings, photographs, and statements by the artist concerning his poetics.

Antonella Soldaini is Director of the Mimmo Rotella Institute.

The art of Mimmo Rotella seems to be marked by a constant play of chance and intuition–”the mythical mental radar” to which the artist often alludes in his writings–and can be characterized by his attraction to the unusual, the unexplored and the unforeseen. Germano Celant traces Rotella’s work, in all of its diversified phases and periods from 1946 to the present, including the initial geometrical and pre-décollages works, the decollages and the verso of torn street posters, the artypo and emulsified canvases, the blanks, and the overpaintings. Rotella has been the subject of numerous retrospectives throughout Europe and the United States, including Grand Central Station, New York in 1994; Cuartel del Conde Duque, Madrid also in 1994; Galerie Ernst Hilger, Wien in 1999; and Palazzo della Triennale, Milan in 2004. In 1964, Rotella represented Italy in the Venice Biennale.

Germano Celant is an art historian and Senior Curator for contemporary art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of New York. He is contributing editor to ArtForum and Interview. He is internationally acclaimed for his work on “Arte Povera.” His recent publications include Architecture & Arts 1900/2004 (Skira 2005) and Manzoni Catalogo delle Opere (Skira 2004).