Carmelo Arden Quin was born in Uruguay and spent his childhood years in Brazil. In 1940, he moved to Buenos Aires, where he played a seminal role in introducing geometric abstraction in the region. He began painting his trademark irregular-shaped canvases in 1936, shortly after meeting Joaquín Torres-García (1874–1949), who had just returned to Montevideo from Europe, bringing with him fresh ideas for creating a distinctly South American form of abstraction (see M.2002.55). Arden Quin was one of the editors of the highly influential avant-garde magazine Arturo (1944), which launched several movements of abstract art in Argentina. In 1946, alongside Gyula Kosice (1924–2016) and Rhod Rothfuss (1920–1969), he established the Madí group in Buenos Aires, which promoted the use of the marco recortado (cutout frame). Arden Quin explained: “What distinguishes us, what makes us original, is the use of regular polygons as a dimension to inscribe a composition. In abandoning the four classical orthogonal angles (square and rectangle) as a basis for composition, we gained in possibilities for invention, in every sense of the word. . . . There is no need to express, represent, or symbolize. The artistic object must be pure . . . Presence is, itself, already an event.”
In 1947, the Madí group split into two factions; the following year, Arden Quin moved to Paris, where he became the leader of Madí International. His irregular-shaped canvases were exhibited at both the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles (1948) and the famed Galerie Denise René (1958). The artist was further credited with being a precursor of kinetic art in the 1968 issue of the journal Robho. Plan Bleu belongs to Arden Quin’s Parisian extension of the Madí.
Ilona Katzew
2024
