Antonio Carena

Antonio Carena, transcending time, challenged artistic norms throughout his career. Even after his passing in 2010, he remains revered as the painter of skies, celebrated globally for his distinct “sky-scapes.” Born in Rivoli, Italy, in 1925, Carena, affectionately known as Toni, dedicated his entire life to the city. Despite his international prominence, Rivoli remained the nexus of his personal and artistic identity—a charming house in the heart of the city, adorned with his and other admired artists’ works, serving as both his nest and creative haven.
“I was baptized with turpentine,” Carena used to jest. His early exposure to the scent of colors in his father’s decorating workshop left an indelible mark on his artistic journey. Coming of age in post-war Italy, Carena began his artistic exploration at the Albertina Academy under the guidance of Enrico Paulucci and assistant Mario Davico. This period marked his dynamic engagement with the Turin art scene, interacting with fellow artists like Mauro Chessa, Giacomo Soffiantino, Francesco Tabusso, Mario Merz, and Piero Ruggeri.
In the late ’50s, Michel Tapié, a French critic, wrote the introduction for Carena’s second exhibition in 1959, signifying a pivotal moment in the artist’s trajectory. This exhibition showcased a new, diffuse luminosity in Carena’s paintings, incorporating subtle sand aggregations—a departure from the prevailing Turin and national artistic trends. Tapié acknowledged Carena’s ability to propose a new order in alignment with contemporary ideals through a novel constructive dimension.
The early ’60s witnessed Carena’s exploration of the objectual dimension of artistic craftsmanship, intensified by the burgeoning American pop art movement. As one of the first Italian artists to delve into extracting parts of objects from urban and industrial environments, Carena focused on their specular aspects. He replaced canvas surfaces with reflective car body parts, presenting and observing events reflected on the surfaces of industrial objects, seamlessly integrating with reality. This approach was notably exemplified in the 1964 Pellicole.
Lucio Fontana’s esteem and friendship were pivotal during this period. The formal choice of Pellicola, redefined here as a gigantic object, showcased Carena’s fascination with light refraction. Painting it with specular nitro shifted its function, turning it into a reflector of images in the environment. Fontana’s admiration, evidenced by the letter to Carena, marked a significant influence.
In 1965, Carena invented his magnificent “Cieli” (Skies), trompe l’oeil paintings created with an airbrush on metal. Representing an exemplary and isolated path after fifteen years of intensive work within the international Informal movement, these skies were “more real than reality,” hyper-realistic before the term gained currency. They possessed a perverse and vertiginous beauty reminiscent of Magritte, inviting viewers to experience them in urban settings and within the confines of city spaces.
The theme of the “sky” became the obsessive leitmotif of Carena’s work, coining neologisms such as “cielismo,” “cielagione,” “nuvolare,” and others. Using the vocational technique of the auto bodyworker, Carena applied light and color to create the artifice of the “foreground sky object,” emotionally captivating observers. He anticipated the graffiti art movement with his Scritte series from 1971 onwards, often centered on mass subjects, with titles presented with fine irony. These paintings featured labyrinthine configurations of light and color, pulsating and mobile bodies challenging interpretation, where letters played on perceptual shifts and hypnotic ambiguities—a style reminiscent of urban graffiti executed with the typical speed.
Carena was an artist who consciously distanced himself from societal norms and even from the sky itself. Whether recalling him in his “garden-studio,” armed with a spray gun and compressors to vaporize clouds, or in a historic palace frescoing vaults, one must not forget his provocative assertion: “I love clouding to make the sky stop imitating me.” Carena charted a course that resonated with his innermost chords. He lived honestly and tenaciously outside academic constraints; his interpretation of the world was anti-pictorial, primarily due to the unconventional tools he employed. Combining sharp thinking and verbal wit with calibrated and personal artistic choices, he stands as one of the most significant contributors to 20th-century Italian art.