Mimmo Rotella

This book was published on the occasion of the exhibition Mimmo Rotella: Selected Early Works at Gladstone in 2017, an exhibition of historical works realized by the Italian artist from 1953 to 1961. 

 

Representing a sea change in the artist’s practice, the compositions are some of the first examples of Rotella’s pioneering décollage and retro d’affiche techniques, methods that would become integral to Rotella’s artistic pursuit of continually engaging with mass media’s own promotional materials.

 

Hardly a veneration of popular tastes, Rotella’s works collapse any semblance of cultural hierarchy onto itself. Famous actors and consumer products all receive equal billing in the artist’s arrangements. Similar to his American Pop Art counterparts, Rotella’s excavation of wide-ranging social figures roots the décollages in the time of their creation, while simultaneously underscoring the ephemerality of the present moment.

 

This publication features essays by Antonella Soldaini and Veronica Locatelli, both of the Mimmo Rotella Institute.

Published by Mousse Publishing and Gladstone, 2017

Hardcover
English
128 pages
8 1/2 x 10 inches; 21.5 x 25.5 cm
ISBN 978-8867492695