(1918 - 2006) Italian artist

Having abandoned abstract painting, Mimmo Rotella made his first torn posters : leaflets torn from the walls, carried on the web where they are sometimes slashed again in a "provocative act against society". iIt's the poet and philologist Italian Emilio Villa who, in a 1949 text, shows to the public the early works of Mr. Rotella. His first solo exhibition took place in Rome in 1951 but it was not until 1960 that he makes a trip to Paris where he meet the critic Pierre Restany. The following year he joined the New Realist group alongside Raymond Hains, Francois Dufrene, and Jacques Villeglé. Mr. Rotella will develop, subsequently, different modes of operation of the displays and also explore other media. "Tear the posters of the walls is the only compensation, the only way to protest against a society that has lost the taste for change and transformation fabulous. Me, I stick up posters, then I tear them : thus arose new forms, unpredictable. This protest made me abandon the easel. "(Mr. Rotella, Rome, 1957)