Fear and pain are fellow travelers. When I am in pain, I feel rejuvenated, if only by a few months. When I am happy, I am so afraid that I should immediately buy a new pair of shoes.

(Carol Rama)

The works of Carol Rama, now on display at the Accorsi Ometto Museum of Turin until September, should be viewed in conjunction with the volume “Edoardo Sanguineti - Carol Rama,” presented at the GAM in Turin over 20 years ago, and the recently published catalogue that accompanies the visitor through the rooms: “Geniale sregolatezza’ (ingenious unruliness).

Starting from the friendship and affection that bound the two artists for over fifty years, it seems the best point to explain the intense fabric that links them is the joining of the work and poetics of one in the works of the other.

On the one hand, one of the authors of Group 63 and the Novissimi, Sanguineti, and on the other, an exponent of the Movimento Arte Concreta, the painter Rama, brought together in Turin in the immediate post-war period in a lively circle of artists and enthusiasts who met for vernissages and premieres and placed solidarity and friendship at the top of the scale of values, a sort of small Bloomsbury in which the painter's studio was a real meeting point where—beyond the quarrels between abstractionism and figuration—it was simple to do what today seems impossible: create a network of communication that presupposes strong human contact.

A concept far removed from today's panorama dominated by video art and installations, which is reiterated in the book, conceived in 1994 by Paolo Fossati (to whom it was dedicated) and divided into two parts: in the first, all of Sanguineti's writings on Carol Rama are collected; in the second, we find reproductions of some 180 works from the late 1930s to the present day. We can say that the pages end where the exhibition begins.

Fear, mentioned at the beginning, and astonishment are at the basis of the works we have seen and are essential elements of Carol Rama's biography, characterized by often tragic moments (as also shown in a Rai Teche video, projected on a loop), and yet traversed—in the affectionate words of her writer friend—with sublime indifference, a sentiment reserved even for herself.

The leading role that the object plays in these paintings has mutated over time: at first part of a bricolage, then inserted in a ‘classical’ manner.

With Carol Rama, one must never lose sight of the concept of order, as the object placed against a ready-made background (such as a map or a blueprint) may seem random, but in reality it is a matter of a painful harmony. Opposites are always present and perfectly reflect the character of the artist who does not separate spirit and flesh.

Starting with her watercolors of the late 1930s, characterized by a singular freedom of expression and an explicit erotic charge. These are flanked by the Expressionist production of the 1940s and the abstract production of the early 1950s, which later flowed into Informalism. This is followed by the well-known Bricolage series—with its collage of doll's eyes, syringes, stones, and rubber caps—and the works from the late 1960s that refer to the human condition at the height of the Cold War. It continues with the ‘Gomme’ of the 1970s, where the artist proposes completely renewed paintings with monochrome white or black surfaces on which portions of inner tubes are arranged.

This is followed by a return to a renewed figuration typical of the 1980s and 1990s, with worlds populated by human figures, angels, animals, geometries, and fantastic perspectives. Finally, he concludes with his most recent production, in particular that linked to the so-called ‘mad cow’ era, on which the artist builds a new series of works with a strong impact.

In front of the very obsessive cycle of the ‘Mad Cow,’ excellently represented in the gallery, we go back in our minds to his words: ‘I like the cow because it is mad, then it has mad erotic gestures and has extraordinary similarities with us... at least with me.’

Mammals, phalluses, and materials felt in a visceral sense that have a strong symbolic value as it is to attribute to an animal suffering from a lethal disease our erotic pulsations. The dentures that have always been present in his work are here the teeth of the cow itself, which is thus humanized.

Finally, the comparison with Marcel Duchamp becomes inescapable in the comets of ‘Tonsure,’ a tribute to a well-known and beloved genius who knew how to question the rules of art; desecrating and ready to experiment, very strong and yet fragile, just as the more than octogenarian Carol Rama also appears to us. Her rubber, wood, and leather are pure poetry, just like Sanguineti's. Not by chance.

From Edoardo, I learned what little I know. I should have learned more; more I cannot learn because I do not have the basics, and this is my greatest nostalgia.

(Carol Rama to Elisabetta Rasy, 1996)