Reimagined Steel
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Since the 1950s, Italian artist Mimmo Rotella has used a decollage technique in his artwork. Originally, he ripped cinema and advertising posters off the street and reapplied them to canvas; later, he began projecting negatives of images onto an emulsified canvas to reproduce them. Familiar images such as the faces of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe appear in many of his works. Together with designer Marco Ferreri, Mr. Rotella has selected some of his original works from the 1960s to be used in a new furniture collection for Italian manufacturer Zerodisegno. For the process, Mr. Rotella’s artwork was digitally manipulated and then transferred from paper onto sheets of galvanized steel using heat. The steel sheets were then sheared, folded, and molded into pieces of furniture. The six-piece furniture collection includes a table ($9,000), three-drawer cabinet ($7,500), six-drawer cabinet ($8,000), sideboard ($7,500), and console ($3,750). Only 99 editions of each piece have been produced; each is unique because of the varied use of the steel sheets. The collection is sold through ZERO US; to order, call 401-724-4470 or e-mail info@zerous.com; for more information, visit www.zerous.com.