Art Madrid'23 – Carol Rama exhibition in Macba museum (Barcelona)

There are few things as rewarding for a museum as recover the work of a tangential art figure, veiled and forgotten by traditional historiography. It is the case of many women artists and the case of the Italian artist Carol Rama, essential B-Side of the XX century avant-garde, whose art can be enjoyed in the MACBA from 30 October until early 2015. 

Dorina, 1940.

 

With an absolutely unique language, influenced by art brut, the informality, les Fauves, feminism and organic abstraction, Carol Rama (Turin, 1918) tries to challenge (with a long career of more than 70 years on active ) the traditional art narrative and the gender discourse itself, with a violent, subversive, sensual and polymorphic vision of art practice and of his own body. MACBA Museum it is not just "giving visibility to the work of Carol Rama" but joining her questions and doubts about the hegemonic concept of art and about the sensuality, the femenine symbol and the abjection. 

Apassionata, 1940.

In the 30s, Rama experiments with watercolors, lubricious, colors and stains to fill hundreds of papers with mutant nudes, tongues, genitals, eyes... with a work between psychoanalysis and the study the unconscious. After a long period, objects began to curdle in her work, ready mades, recycling, organic pieces, tires, nails, syringes, Arte Povera make her work even more pregnante ... more pornographic.

La Macelleria, 1980.

 

In the nineties, Carol Rama returns to figuration without losing their initial anger because, as she herself has stated on numerous occasions: "paint makes me free from the anguish suffered by what was happening to my family, transforming anguish in transgression... I was out. Contrary. Never lining up"

Carol Rama y Andy Warhol. Fotografía de Dino Petrali, 1975.

Curated by Teresa Grandas and Beatriz Preciado - feminist philosopher, specializing in Queer Theory and Philosophy of gender - the exhibition is an alternative file with wich you can correctly understand the history of art of the twentieth century as it is "an artist imperative to understand the mutations of representation in the twentieth century and the later work of artists like Cindy Sherman, Kara Walker, Sue Williams, Kiki Smith and Elly Strik ". 

Carol Rama has participated for several years in the Venice Biennale (1948, 1950, 1956, 1993) and in 2003 received the Golden Lion.
 
 

 

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.