Tribute to Mimmo Rotella at NEO Art & Culture Lab x VogelART
Two decades after his passing, Mimmo Rotella continues to stand as
one of the most disruptive and influential voices in post-war European
art. His practice—rooted in the transformation of urban advertising into
layered visual poetry—still feels startlingly contemporary, especially
in a world even more saturated with images than the one he first
responded to.
After completing his studies at the Accademia di
Belle Arti in Naples, Rotella moved to Rome in 1945, entering a period
of rapid experimentation. But it was in 1953 that his practice shifted
decisively. In what he later described as a moment of “Zen
illumination,” he began to see torn advertising posters not as visual
noise, but as raw artistic material.
That insight gave rise to his
signature technique: décollage. Unlike collage, which builds up
surfaces, décollage works by stripping them away. Rotella physically
removed posters from city walls, then reworked them in the
studio—tearing, scraping, and reassembling fragments before transferring
them onto canvas, wood, or metal. The result was not just composition,
but collision: layered histories of the city embedded in a single
surface.
His approach quickly positioned him at the forefront of European
avant-garde art. His work is now held in major collections including the
Centre Pompidou and the Museum of Modern Art, and he exhibited widely
across international platforms, including the Venice Biennale in 1964.
In 1960, Rotella joined the radical movement Nouveau Réalisme alongside
artists such as Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Arman, all united by a desire
to rethink art through the material reality of contemporary life.
Now, Rotella’s legacy returns to the spotlight in “Mimmo Rotella & Friends”, a new exhibition at NEO Art & Culture Lab x VogelART in Nice, curated by internationally recognized artist Gregor Hildebrandt.
Rather
than functioning as a conventional retrospective, the exhibition is
structured as a cross-generational dialogue between Rotella and fourteen
contemporary artists. Hildebrandt frames the show as a living
conversation, where Rotella’s décollages act not as historical
artifacts, but as active provocations that continue to generate new
artistic responses.
Among the participating artists are major
figures in contemporary art practice, including Barbara Kruger, Isa
Genzken, John Baldessari, Katharina Grosse, JR, and Rosemarie Trockel,
each engaging with themes of appropriation, image culture, and visual
memory.
At the heart of the exhibition remain Rotella’s iconic
décollages—fragmented urban surfaces that carry the residue of
advertising, politics, and everyday visual overload. Surrounding them,
contemporary works expand the dialogue into new material and conceptual
territories, transforming the exhibition into a multi-voiced reflection
on how images accumulate meaning over time.
Organized in close
collaboration with the Rotella family, the project also resonates
strongly in Nice—a city closely tied to the artist’s cultural memory and
Mediterranean context.
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