Artist
Biography
Arden Quin, Carmelo
Uruguay, 1913 — France, 2010
Painter, sculptor, and poet. From an early age, he began painting and participating in political demonstrations with friends. In 1935 he met Joaquin Torres Garcia at a conference at the headquarters of the Theosophical Society. That year, after creating cubist style proposals, he made his first geometric non-orthogonal paintings, transgressing the traditional limits of the rectangle. By 1937 he settled in Buenos Aires where he surrounded himself with modern artists and studied philosophy and literature. In 1941 he cofounded the bimonthly newspaper *El Universitario*, where he published his political and aesthetic ideas. He participated in the publishing group of *Arturo. Revista de Artes Abstractas* along with Gyula Kosice, Rhod Rothfuss, Edgar Bayley, Tomás Maldonado and Lidy Prati. In 1944 they edited the sole edition, in which Murillo Mendes, Vicente Huidobro and Torres García also collaborated. This publication marked the beginning of the non-figurative movement in Argentina.
In 1945 he cofounded the group Movimiento de Arte Concreto Invención. A year later, the group was split into two groups: the Arte Concreto Invencion Association and the Madi Group. Arden Quin and other artists launched the Madi movement. The movement’s main characteristics are irregular frames, movable and displacing architecture, pan interval music composition and invented poetic propositions. The Madi philosophy encompassed painting, design, sculpture, architecture and politics. Arden Quin read his Madi manifesto in 1946 to a group of critics and journalists at the French Institute for Higher Learning in Buenos Aires. His manifesto and the movement was rooted in his commitment to activism and politics, as well as from the artistic and ideological ideas of Torres-Garcia and the Futurism movement in Italy. During this time, he made polygonal frame works, mobile structures, coplanars, object paintings and concave works, which he called Formes Galbées.
Around 1948 he moved to Paris, where he frequented with mordern artists such as Jean Arp and Georges Braque. He held numerous exhibitions and participated in the Salon des Realites Nouvelles. During this period, he introduced collage and decoupage in his work. In Buenos Aires, he co-founded the Arte Nuevo group, along with artists of various non-figurative tendencies. The group’s first exhibition was held at the Van Riel Gallery in 1954.
In Paris he directed the magazine Ailleurs and, during the 1960s, he participated in the Poesia Concreta movement. He returned to painting in 1971 and continued to work at his home in Savigny sur-Orge until his death in 2010.
His most important solo exhibitions include but are not limited to: Galerie Charley Chevalier (Paris, 1973) “Retrospective 1936-1985”; Galerie des Ponchettes (Nice, 1985); Arte y Tecnología Foundation (Madrid, 1997); Durban Segnini Gallery (Miami, 2006); “A Celebration of Geometric Art, MADÍ Homage to Carmelo Arden Quin”, Leepa Rattner Museum of Art (Tarpon Springs, Florida, 2006).
His works are present in different museums and collections including, among others: Museum of Geometric and Madi Art (Dallas, Texas); Museum of Fine Arts Houston (Houston, Texas); Musee d’Art Moderne (Saint-Etienne, France); Museu Madi de Sobral (Ceara, Brasil); Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires, Argentina); Daros-Latinamerica Collection (Zurich, Switzerland); Tate Gallery (London, England); Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY); Musee Centre Pompidou (Paris, France)
Works
Forme G
Arden Quin, Carmelo
1948
Oil on Cardboard
GESTA 43
Arden Quin, Carmelo
2006
Acrylic on Plastic
Passerelle
Arden Quin, Carmelo
1954
Oil on Cardboard
B Y N
Arden Quin, Carmelo
2005
Acrylic on Wood