Digital Guide Carol Rama | Kunstmuseum Bern

Introduction

Sexuality, madness, illness and death are the major subjects that Carol Rama (1918–2015) addresses in her art. Like many of Modernism’s outstanding female artists she only gained recognition very late. Commenting on being awarded the Golden Lion at the 50^th Venice Biennale in 2003 she stated: “This, naturally, makes me furious, because if I’m really that good, I don’t understand why I had to go hungry for so long, even if I am a woman”.

During the mid-1930s, the young woman from Turin decided to become an artist and to challenge the dominance of men in both everyday life and art. A series of erotic watercolours dates from the period, which not only established her later fame but also a reputation for fearlessness in her art. Carol Rama addresses the body, gender and sexuality in terms of social norms. She does so by depicting female identities in a direct and pleasurable way, breaking the ground for today’s feminist art. It is in these works that she leaves the conservative, bourgeois environment in which she grew up – Catholic Italy during the Fascist era – far behind her. Carol Rama assertively explained: “My rebellion is in painting”.

In not being subservient to any school or group of artists, Carol Rama was able to create an experimental, radical and personal body of work over the course of seventy years. She developed new approaches to her art roughly every ten years, which the exhibition is presenting in six chapters. The exhibition opens with key works in black and red from various periods of her oeuvre. Rama repeatedly began work from the blackness of the image, stating: “I’d paint everything black, it’s a kind of cremation, like a fantastic struggle with death. Black was always like a theatrical play, a way of painting that made me feel a little like a director able to create extraordinary scenarios.” In contrast, the artist considered red, “an erotic excitement, it lends a little despair to my deep fears, but it also heals them”.

Concurrently to her early watercolours, Carol Rama produced oil paintings, many of which were portraits or self-portraits. From the 1950s onwards, she painted abstract-concrete works, subsequently opening the flat canvas to produce her first experimental paintings incorporating other materials. This led to the Bricolage group of works produced during the 1960s and Gomme (Tyres) during the 1970s. Eventually, during the 1980s, the artist returned to figuration. Even today, Carol Rama remains provocative not only in her depictions of pain and pleasure, but also in the impossibility of clearly categorising her art.

An exhibition organised by Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt in collaboration with Kunstmuseum Bern.

Biography

Carol Rama in her home and studio, 1994, Photo: Pino Dell’Aquila, © 2025 Pino Dell’Aquila

1918
Olga Carolina Rama is born on April 17 in Turin. Rejecting the number 17, which is considered unlucky in Italy, she always gave her birthdate as April 16 or 18.

1920s
Rama’s father runs the company Carrozzeria Amabile Rama, a manufacturer of car parts.

1929
Rama’s father’s company goes bankrupt during the Great Depression.

1933
Rama’s mother, Marta, has a stay at the psychiatric women’s clinic I due Pini due to a neurological illness. Rama will refer to the clinic in the titles and motifs of numerous watercolors that she paints in the 1930s and 1940s.

1942
Her father Amabile Rama dies at the age of fifty-two, possibly by suicide. Turin is evacuated in December due to Allied bombing. Rama flees with her mother and older sister Emma to Burolo.

1940s
Rama moves into an attic apartment at 15 Via Napione in Turin, which she also uses as a studio. She will live there for the rest of her life. From the late 1940s onwards, Rama regularly invites intellectuals and creative talents to her home and studio.

1945–48
The first exhibition of Rama’s watercolors is installed. According to Rama’s account, the exhibition is closed by police order even before it opens due to obscenity.

In 1946, Rama meets the poet Edoardo Sanguineti. They will remain close friends until his death in 2010. That same year, Rama is represented in a group exhibition at Galleria La Bussola in Turin, directed by Felice Casorati. In 1947, Casorati promotes a solo exhibition of Rama's work at Libreria del Bosco.

1950 / 1952 / 1956
Participation in the 25th / 26th / 28th Venice Biennale.

1953
Rama joins the Turin branch of the artists’ group Movimento Arte Concreta (MAC). Further members from Turin are Annibale Biglione, Paola Levi-Montalcini, Adriano Parisot, and Filippo Scroppo.

1971–74
In her last solo exhibition at the Galleria La Bussola in Turin, in 1971, Rama presents for the first time works made with inner tubes, the so-called Gomme. That same year, Rama meets the gallery owner Luciano Anselmino, who represents international art stars such as Man Ray and Andy Warhol at his Galleria Il Fauno in Turin (from 1976 in Milan). He soon began to represent Rama as well.

1979
Rama presents her watercolors from the 1930s and ’40s to the public for the first time in a solo exhibition at the Galleria Martano in Turin. The exhibition is organized by Liliana Dematteis.

1980
Rama’s work is shown in the groundbreaking group exhibition L’altra metà dell’avanguardia 1910–1940, curated by Lea Vergine, which opens at the Palazzo Reale in Milan and then travels to Rome and Stockholm.

1985
Lea Vergine curates Rama’s first major retrospective at the Sagrato del Duomo in Milan. This retrospective makes Rama known to a wider public.

1993
The curator of the 45th Venice Biennale, Achille Bonito Oliva, dedicates a special room to Rama in the Italian Pavilion, designed by Corrado Levi.

1998
The exhibition carolrama, curated by Maria Cristina Mundici, is shown at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

2003
At the 50th Venice Biennale, under curator Francesco Bonami, Rama is awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

2010
The Archivio Carol Rama is founded in Turin.

2015
Carol Rama dies on September 24 in Turin.

2019
Carol Rama’s home and studio in Turin is made accessible to visitors.

2022
Rama’s watercolors are shown as part of The Milk of Dreams / Il Latte dei sogni, the main exhibition for the 59th Venice Biennale, curated by Cecilia Alemani.

2023
Carol Rama. Catalogo ragionato 1936–2005 is published (English version: Carol Rama: Catalogue Raisonné, 2024). The catalogue raisonné provides a comprehensive overview of Carol Rama’s artistic oeuvre.

Floor plan

Introduction

Biography

Accompanying programme

Events

Workshops

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