Carmelo Arden-quin Biography
Carmelo Arden Quin was born in 1913 in Rivera, Uruguay. In 1932 he began studying Art History. In 1935 in Montevideo he met Torrès-Garcia, who soon became his mentor and was instrumental in the artistic career of the young Arden Quin. In 1936 Arden Quin transgressed the traditional limits of the rectangle by creating, in a programmatic and non-random way, the first non-orthogonal works with irregular contours. From 1936 he fought against Spanish fascism and made numerous trips. He exhibits his new works at the Casa de España in Montevideo. In 1937 he moved to Buenos Aires where he frequented the avant-garde artists, joining the Grupo de pintores de vanguardia with Guy Ponce De Léon, Pablo Becker, Luis Lloret Castels, Amaury Sarmiento. He enrolled in the faculties of Philosophy and Letters and studied the art of primitive peoples. In 1941 he was one of the founders of the magazine "El Universitario". In 1944 he formed the Arturo group with Edgard Bailey, Gyulia Kosice, Tomàs Maldonado, Lidy Prati. He publishes the magazine of the same name with the participation of Vincent Huidobro, Murillo Mendes, Rot Rothfuss, Vieira da Silva, Augusto Torres and Torrès-Garcia himself. In the same year he abandoned the flat and frontal view of the work. In 1945 he organized the first Arte Concreto Invensìn exhibition. In 1946 he founded the Movimento Madi Internacional and organized the group's exhibitions in Buenos Aires as well as the first Exposición MADI Internacional in Montevideo. In this period he created the Formes galbée and began working on the Coplanals. In 1948 he moved to Paris where he frequented artists and the major exponents of European and international culture, meeting among others Vantongerloo, Michel Seuphor, Marcelle Cahn, Auguste Herbin, Jean Arp, Georges Braque, Francis Picabia. He creates the Center de Recherches et des Études MADI in his studio on rue Froidevaux. In addition to the major reference galleries of the time, such as Colette Allendy, Denise René, Suzanne Michel, he exhibited regularly with the Madi group at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles until 1956. In the 1950s he used white plastic or enameled and polished wood and since 1953 he has been creating motorized mobile sculptures called Mobiles. In 1954 in Buenos Aires he founded the Arte Nuevo group which held its first exhibition at the Van Riel Gallery. In 1956 he began the series of Collages and Découpages, working on object-paintings and continuing to experiment with the "H" shape. In Paris he published "Opplimos" and directed the magazine "Ailleurs" in the 1960s. He also participates in the Concrete Poetry movement.
