Problemi di nuova figurazione nell’opera di Antonio Carena (1925-2010)

“How can they claim to paint the human figure when they are satisfied with details?”. This question was paramount for the Rivoli-born artist Antonio Carena (1925-2010) during the mid-1950s and the 1960s. The representation of the human form was one of the most significant aspects of the painter’s career, but it remains poorly studied to this day. This issue is evident in certain works that both show Carena’s engagement with the new figuration and reveal the personal nature of his artistic research. The series of Nudi painted between 1960 and 1962 marked the culmination of a discourse that stemmed from sketches dating back to 1956-1957, which Carena would later disavow, even going so far as to destroy some of them. Through an analysis of unpublished works, drawings and the artist’s diary, this contribution focuses on Carena’s complex relationship with the representation of the human figure throughout the 1950s and 1960s. His approach intersected with contemporary developments in Italian and Turin artistic research, especially within the debate on new figuration.