CAROL RAMA

Carol Rama

1918 Turin – 2015 Turin

Carol Rama, born as Olga Carola Rama, is the youngest daughter of a wealthy tyre manufacturer. She is an autodidactic artist dealing with the topics of sexuality, physical forms, and mental illness. Rama sees her art as a means of healing. The artist is already on her own at the age of 15, after her mother is admitted to a psychiatric institution and her father’s suicide following his factory’s bankruptcy. The first exhibition of her provocative to explicit art takes place at the Faber Gallery in Turin in 1945, but is closed by the police for lewd depictions. In the 1950s, she begins to experiment with different materials such as syringes, car tyres and other mechanical parts, and develops her own abstract collage style.

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It is not until the end of the 70s that she receives international attention through her participation in various exhibitions. During this time, she meets artists like Man Ray and Andy Warhol. From the 90s on, she starts to work with the different techniques of etching. In 1998 a retrospective of her art is shown in Amsterdam. In 2003, her life’s work is awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. Her works are now in the most important museums in the world, including the MoMa in New York and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Selected works

Carol Rama
Untitled

1959
mixed media on paper
34 x 32 cm

Carol Rama
Spazio anche più che tempo

1970
Collage mit Reifen auf Leinwand
80 x 100 cm

Exhibitions

26 October – 25 November 2016

Carol Rama

Works from the 50s, 60s and 70s

Carol Rama belongs to those strong female artists who were recognized and discovered in their uniqueness until old age or just then. Similar to Louise Bourgeois, the artist received well-deserved awards and major museum exhibitions only very late in life.

Excerpt

“In her works Rama was a voyeur, a freethinker and a feminist. When it came to the choice between rational objectivity or instinctive emotionality, the artist chose the second, but always with a crystal clear mind. She loved provocation and shock, especially when it came to social norms and morality.”

Erika Schlessinger-Költzsch