Antonio Carena Biography
Antonio Carena was born in Rivoli in 1925 and attended painting courses with Enrico Paulucci in 1945, graduating from the Accademia Albertina in Turin with the “Dino Uberti” prize for the best diploma. Carena opts for the artistic freedom of the school of Paulucci, which embraces a fluid and vibrant colorism, rather than the important school of Felice Casorati, dominated by the "classical feeling" of the form. In 1949 Carena participated in the "I Mostra Art Club Internazionale", a significant traveling exhibition presented by Albino Galvano at Palazzo Carignano, which brought the Turin artists into contact with those selected by the organizers - Prampolini, Beck, Batiss and Jarema - in Rome, and presented works by Burri, Turcato, Spazzapan, Dorazio, Severini and Sironi.
In his early years, Carena's painting moves towards broad, spatial and structural abstraction, with dark chromatic layers and a cadence close to Soulages. At just 25 years old he was invited to exhibit at the XXV Venice Biennale in 1950, where he presented his 1949 work “La Finestra”. Carena's first informal attempts, among the first in Italy, were born between 1950-1951 and are linked to a profound existential malaise. Works such as “Grate” (1950), “Composizione” (1951), “Data” (1951), “Controluce o Grata” (1952), “Religiosity within a movement” (1951-1952), and “Free Grate” ( 1952) are dominated by the metaphor of the closing of the gates. Dark shades prevail, with small openings of light (or sky) that create tension and are enriched with dynamic color signs. Carena typically used tempera on canvas with industrial enamel and rolla. These pieces were exhibited in his first solo exhibition at the Circolo Eurpa Giovane in Turin in 1955, presented by Albino Galvano, who followed the young artist closely from the early 1950s. Between 1955 and 1958, the three-year period preceding the exhibition at Notizie, proved to be very important in Carena's artistic career. Grate's syntax, which characterized the existential crisis of 1950-1953 by combining feelings with the pictorial technique of the Informal, took a back seat, replaced by a cosmic matter and darkness with short flashes of light represented by paintings entitled "Situations ” (1957) or “Visions” (1958). Carena used tempera on canvas, collage, scratches, tears and dust to create subtle folds and slight undulations on the surface, all reserved for soft tones ranging from dark earth colors to black backgrounds. From the plots of the Informal was born his declared youthful love for Caravaggio and Turner, two artistic cultures of the past that had a notable impact on the European and American Informal, thanks to their relationship with shadow and light.
1959 is also significant for Carena's participation in "Arte Nuova" in Turin, and for two large national exhibitions that place the contemporary scene alongside the historical masters: the "Morgan Painting" in Rimini (whose commission included Arcangeli, Carluccio and Valsecchi), and the XI Lissone International Prize (whose coordination committee included Argan, Lassaigne, Restany and Tapié).
At the beginning of the 1960s, Carena shifted his attention towards the object dimension of the artistic artefact deduced from the urban and consumerist iconography emphasized by the nascent pop culture. However, in 1965, he invented his magnificent Trompe-l'œil painting “Skies” on sheet metal, marking a new creative turning point for Carena. After having worked intensely for fifteen years, from the Grata of 1950 where dark grilled signs let the light (and the sky) filter through to the milky flows of Materism and the first Cieli of 1958 and the Ghiacci of 1959, where a lyrical effusion opens in a space luminescent, Carena has achieved the conquest of an open and airy light-space.
