Image: Idrolitina (Mimmo Rotella, 1963)
Remixed track: Soldi soldi soldi (Betty Curtis, 1962)
Mimmo Rotella (Catanzaro, 7 October 1918 – Milan, 8 January 2006) was an Italian artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. Best known for his works of décollage made from torn advertising posters. He was associated to the Ultra-Lettrists an offshoot of Lettrism and later was a member of the Nouveau Réalisme, founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany.
…The idea of decollage was born during a period of “artistic crisis” and took place following the trip to the US, during which he was in contact with members of the New Dada. Back in Rome he became inspired by torn posters around the town and began to carry them in his studio and to work on them. The result was the creation of canvases on which pasted wheel one or more pieces of torn posters, often superimposed.
Rotella wanted to somehow find some form of artistic innovation and at the same time give artistic dignity to a common object, and of little value removed from its natural environment. The first trials of Rotella with decollage date back to 1953. The first decollage, in most small cases, were exhibited for the first time in the spring of 1955.
(Wikipedia source)
