CARMELO ARDEN QUIN AND HIS LINKS WITH CHILE

Some 200 paintings, sculptures, illustrations and collages, as well as files and videos, make up an exhibition built around an artist who was characterized by being multidisciplinary in his artistic dimension and inclusive in the social dimension. Through an attitude of remarkable openness and versatility, Carmelo Arden Quin (Uruguay, 1913 – France, 2010) managed to put together a network of artistic relations between Argentina, Chile and France that today once again come together in the La Moneda Cultural Center.

Transgress the traditional limits of the rectangle and poetry to go further, systematizing the mobile in sculpture, letters and painting. This was proposed by Carmelo Arden Quin in an interview in 2005. At that time the River Plate artist was 92 years old, and had spent more than three quarters of his life dedicated to art: he created two magazines, assembled and reassembled an avant-garde, carried out poetic actions, published a book, participated in several exhibitions with different groups and created hundreds of works, many of which contemplate the participation of his spectators.

Although Arden Quin's artistic practice is characterized by constant changes, something that remained invariant was his inclination towards collective projects. This is precisely the characteristic of his career in which María Cristina Rossi, Argentine researcher specializing in Latin American art, anchored herself to put together the curatorial proposal of En la Trama del Arte Constructivo. Open until October 8 at the La Moneda Cultural Center, the exhibition brings together dozens of paintings, sculptures, poems, letters, magazines and records related to Carmelo Arden Quin.

Through a route that recreates the trips that the Uruguayan artist undertook throughout his life, the pieces are presented in dialogue with works by Joaquín Torres García and those of the avant-garde collectives and artistic movements that he founded: the Asociación Arte Concreto- Invention and the MADI movement in the River Plate area; the Center d’Etudes et de Recherches madistes in Paris; the Buenos Aires Arte Nuevo Association; and the MADI International movement. With a sociable personality and an integrative vision, Arden Quin promoted the construction of a significant network of painters, sculptors and poets of the time who yearned for social and political transformations.
The exhibition comes to Chile thanks to a traveling program that began in 2022 at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires in its capacity as organizer. However, the exhibition presented in Chile delves into themes that were only outlined after passing through Argentina. Thus, we delve into the artistic career of Carmelo Arden Quin in the 60s and 70s, marked by greater poetic production. Along with this, emphasis is placed on relationships with Chilean creators such as Vicente Huidobro and Gustavo Poblete, as well as with the poet Godofredo Iommi and the sculptor Claudio Girola, both Argentines who lived and died in Chile.

After dedicating more than ten years to the study of Carmelo Arden Quin's work, reading her correspondence and analyzing how the relationships between these artists and writers were established, Rossi defined that this last aspect would contribute a new and important chapter to the curatorial story. The exhibition in Chile was then updated and complemented with a special core entitled Exchanges with Chilean artists. According to art historian Magdalena Dardel, these links had never been explored in depth.

“María Cristina is being very pioneering in proposing, not only through the work, but also through documentation, the links that we can understand between Carmelo and Chile.” In her opinion, the research becomes even more relevant when considering the low value of Arden Quin's production in Chile, compared to other Latin American countries, such as Brazil and Argentina.