The Carla Sozzani Gallery presents the exhibition “Mimmo Rotella. Erotique” from 8 October to 13 November 2016. The works selected for “Mimmo Rotella. Erotique” have eroticism as their theme and present an overview of some of the lesser-known techniques in the artist's production, such as the photographic transfer obtained by transferring an image onto an emulsified canvas and the frottage created by sprinkling a nitro solvent on magazine pages which "transfers" the images onto a sheet.
The execution of these works is closely linked to the period between the end of the sixties and the seventies, when the artist lives mainly in Paris and at the same time travels first to New York – where he resides at the Chelsea Hotel – and then to Costa Azzurra: here, it gets involved in the worldly and international atmosphere that reigns in Gassin, Ramatuelle and Saint-Tropez. After XNUMX, the so-called sexual revolution had undermined bourgeois morality: the "liberation of eros" was theorized, understood as the emancipation of one's sexuality and a vehicle for the release of creative energies, previously conditioned by social codes. Rotella is sensitive to the analysis and exploration of erotic dynamics: “Alongside my work, I take my erotic life very seriously, which I never leave out, because it also serves as an inspiration and, perhaps, for my work at the same time. My life hinges on this fact, on these erotic adventures, which then at a certain moment, are the basis for my future and present work".
These elements are found in the works exhibited at the Galleria Carla Sozzani, such as La dolce conquista (1972), L'amplexo (1975), and Other scenes, created in 1968 from a photograph taken during a long stay at the Chelsea Hotel or in the frottage entitled Erotique (1971) in which the black and white underlines the allusive power of the images.
"Mimmo Rotella 2016" is an exhibition linked to the tenth anniversary of the artist's death in which other Milanese galleries and institutions participate, testifying to the relationship between Rotella and the city in which he worked and lived in the last years of his existence. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Mimmo Rotella Institute, created by Inna and Aghnessa Rotella in 2012 with the aim of creating the catalog raisonné and promoting national and international knowledge and protection of
figure and art of Mimmo Rotella. The Mimmo Rotella Institute is directed by Antonella Soldaini with the scientific support of Veronica Locatelli.
After completing his Fine Arts studies in Naples, Mimmo Rotella (Catanzaro, 1918 – Milan, 2006) went to Rome in 1945 where he worked in the Carla Sozzani Gallery presenting the exhibition “Mimmo Rotella. Erotique” from 8 October to 13 November 2016. As a graphic designer at the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. In 1951 he exhibited some abstract paintings on the occasion of his first one-man show at the Chiurazzi Gallery and obtained a scholarship from the Fullbright Foundation which allowed him to attend Kansas City University in the United States. In 1953 he made the first décollages. In 1960 he joined the Nouveau Réalisme group. In 1964 he participates with a room
personal exhibition at the XXXII Venice Biennale and moved to Paris. In the eighties he moved to Milan, while in 2000 he established the Mimmo Rotella Foundation, currently chaired by Rocco Guglielmo and directed by Piero Mascitti. In 2005 he opened his house-museum in Catanzaro, called Casa della Memoria. Still in full swing, he disappeared in Milan on January 8, 2006.
