Carol Rama in conversation with Corrado Levi, 1988

‘The colour black will help me die, and I would always paint everything black, it’s a sort of incineration, a marvellous agony, black has always been a piece of theater, a way to paint and also feel rather like a film director, like creating extraordinary stage settings, a ballet by Béjart, for instance. For the little I have danced I’ve dreamt of being a famous ballerina, something between the Bolshoi and Fred Astaire, so I’m crazy about these things too, because they can’t be absorbed but they are inside me, so I’d like […] I’d like to be what I am, and at eighty I’d like to dance and be able to paint black paintings, with black tires, with black stripes, with a rub of another black. I sent a small easel covered with red tires to an exhibition in Trento curated by Lea Vergine, and over it I put a black tire, like a sawed-off shotgun, and there I took down my enemies. I’m rather ashamed to have so many, because if a colleague is good I don’t feel jealous, I’m pissed off, which is much worse, when I’m jealous it’s like when I don’t get kissed, don't get fucked, don't get a person, but being pissed off I have to say I’m ashamed of that, but I’ve been pissed off since I was eleven and now I’m nearly eighty, so I don’t think there’s anyone who’s as pissed off as I am.’