Carmelo Arden Quin

Carmelo Arden Quin (né Carmelo Heriberto Alves; 16 March 1913 – 27 September 2010) was a Uruguayan artist.

Arden Quin’s primary focuses were painting and poetry.

From a young age, Arden Quin was an ambitious and idealistic artist.

Today, Arden Quin is most recognized for his co-founding of the Madí movement, which began in Argentina but ultimately became an international movement.

Arden Quin’s commitment to invention, rather than replication or representation, drove his relentless pursuit of new forms and ideas.

In 1913, Carmelo Arden Quin (born Carmelo Heriberto Alves) was born to a single mother in the border town of Rivera, Uruguay.

Arden Quin's father had been murdered while he was still in his mother's womb, and in his stead three of Arden Quin's uncles helped to raise the boy.

From an early age, Arden Quin showed an aptitude for art, designing and selling colorful kites to fellow classmates as early as age eleven.

This initial interest was cultivated by his uncle Miguel, who himself was a painter and sculptor.

Arden Quin also received rudimentary lessons in painting from a close family friend during his teenage years.

During this same time, Arden Quin and his friends began to participate in political demonstrations, which would galvanize his enduring involvement in political causes.

Before Arden Quin moved to Buenos Aires during the late 1930s, he lived primarily in Montevideo, Uruguay, and also spent some time in Brazil.

In Montevideo, Arden Quin frequented the cafés, or peñas, where painters and writers of the city gathered and discussed their works.

In 1934, Arden Quin began to experiment in his uncle Miguel's workshop.

After painting a cubist work, Arden Quin had the idea to "reform" the painting's rectangular shape.

Taking a pair of scissors, Arden Quin began to cut pieces out of the border of his painting.

This experiment would be the beginning of a long career of artistic innovation.

In the same year, Arden Quin left his family in Rivera for the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo.

In early 1935, a friend of Arden Quin invited him to a lecture at the Theosophical Society of Montevideo by Joaquín Torres-García, an esteemed and exceedingly well-traveled artist and the founder of the Universalismo movement, otherwise known as Universal Constructivism.

He eagerly accepted the invitation and, after the lecture, Arden Quin's friend introduced the passionate young poet and artist to Torres-García, who invited Arden Quin to visit him in his studio.

Torres-García would provide invaluable guidance and inspiration for Arden Quin, and would directly influence Arden Quin's development of Madí.

In 1937, Arden Quin left his home country for Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Immediately, Arden Quin immersed himself in the culture of the city.

As in Montevideo, he founded like-minded, motivated artists and political activists in the cafés, or tertulias, of Buenos Aires.

Arden Quin also began to attend university art classes.

Through his classes at the university and his time in the tertulias, the young artist and poet perpetually expanded his connections.

In this time his incubating plans for starting his own movement compelled him to recruit potential members.

At the university Arden Quin would forge a friendship with poet Edgar Bayley.

On a brief trip home to Uruguay in 1939 for an art exhibition, he would notice a young painter named Rhod Rothfuss.

While working in a pencil factory in 1940, Arden Quin would meet a young Hungarian immigrant named Fernando Fallik, who would later be known to the art world as Gyula Kosice.

These are among the few talents who would contribute to Arden Quin's efforts in the publication of Arturo, a precursor to Madí.

Early in the 1940s, Arden Quin was provided the opportunity to travel upriver from Buenos Aires deep into the rain forest to seek a job opportunity with an Argentine-Brazilian coffee company that was attempting to expand operations into neighboring Paraguay.

Always eager for adventure and the prospect of "money-making schemes", Arden Quin boarded a steamboat, and found himself in Asunción, Paraguay, three days later.

Though he never found employment with the coffee company, Arden Quin's experiences in Paraguay stimulated Arden Quin's creativity, and galvanized an immensely productive year of his life.

Upon returning, he would draft his first manifesto and a significant part of a long prose poem, both of which would be featured in his journal Arturo.

In addition, he painted Les Formes Noires, a series of six paintings that would be considered some of the most mysterious of his entire career.

These works, heavily influenced by his trip up the river, and by a visit to the Natural Sciences Museum in Argentina, feature black oil "mask" shapes on cardboard with a single "eye" in each.

In the following years, Arden Quin's Arturo idea would continue to take shape as he secured the contributions of many poets and artists.

In 1942, the artist took a trip to Rio de Janeiro to continue these efforts.

By the end of his visit, painter Maria Elena Vieira da Silva and poet Murilo Mendes provided contributions for the journal.