Description
Marilyn 1963. Original mixed media, unknown year. Edition of 80 signed and numbered impressions on Arches paper.
Mimmo Rotella was an Italian post-war artist, best known for his decollage and psychogeographics, made from advertising posters. He began as a painter of geometric abstractions but he turned away towards the world around him and inspired by torn movie and advertising posters around the town, Rotella began to work with them in his studio, created semi-abstract compositions which he called “double décollages”. The purpose was to give a common object artistic value and remove its natural environment. Rotella also created assemblages of junk objects – bottle caps and stoppers, pieces of rope, twine etc. Except those decollages and assemblages, he also experimented with his poetry, paintings, photographs and collages, breaking down conventions and leaving behind a body of extravagant work. An American pop icon, Merilyn Monroe was the muse of many artists of that time, including Rotella. She represented the American Dream and Hollywood of shine and glamour. The year in the name of the artwork is the year of the assassination of American president John Kennedy, whose mistress Marilyn was. A year before, she was killed, too.
