Mimmo Rotella

Biography

Born in Catanzaro October 7, 1918

Mimmo Rotella finished high school and moved to Naples where he began art studies in 1941 before moving to Rome.

Between 1944 and 1945 he taught draftsmanship in Catanzaro. In 1947 he began to participate in exhibitions in Rome: the first solo exhibition, with geometric-abstract works in 1951 at the Galleria Chiurazzi of Rome, did not receive critical acclaim.

In 1951 he exhibited in Paris at the Salon des Nouvelles Realistes.

In 1953 he discovered the poster as an artistic expression of the city. Thus was born the collage (collage at the beginning): paste on the canvas pieces of torn posters on the street, taking the collage of the Cubists and contaminating it with the matrix of the Dadaist ready-mades. In 1955, in Rome, in the exhibition "Art Exhibition today," he exhibited for the first time 'poster torn'.

The first awards arrive in 1956 with the award in 1957 with the Graziano and Battistoni Award. With the Cinecittà series of 1958, select figures and faces of cinema advertising orienting production towards more figurative works type.

In 1960 he joined the New Realism (though he did not sign the manifesto), the theory was Pierre Restany and meets, among others, Klein, Spoerri, Tinguely, César, Arman and Christo. Together with décollages, Rotella also performs assemblage of objects bought from junk dealers as bottle caps or cords.

In 1961 he exhibited at the historical exhibition at 40 ° au-dessus de Dada, edited in Paris by Restany. In 1964 he was invited to the Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition.

He spent the '70s in Paris but in 1980 he moved to Milan, where he completed the second cycle of works dedicated to the cinema, "Cinecittà 2".

In 1990 he participated at the Centre Pompidou in Paris at the exhibition "Art et Pub" and the Museum of Modern Art in New York exhibition "High and Low."

He received in 1992 by the French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, the title Officiel des Lettres et des Arts.

In 2000 was founded by the will of the artist, a foundation dedicated to him: the 'Mimmo Rotella Foundation', with the aim of collecting the works and documents listed in the artistic life of the master.

Wheel In 2004 he received an honorary degree in Architecture at the University Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria.

He died in Milan on January 8, 2006.