Carol Rama: Antibodies (new Museum)

While Carol Rama (1918–2015) has been largely overlooked in contemporary art discourses, her work has proven prescient and influential for many artists working today, attaining cult status and attracting renewed interest.Rama’s exhibition at the New Museum brings together over 150 of her paintings, objects and works on paper, highlighting her consistent fascination with the representation of the body. This book celebrates the independence and eccentricity of this legendary artist whose work spanned half a century of contemporary art history and anticipated debates on sexuality, gender and representation. Encompassing her entire career, it traces the development from her early erotic, harrowing depictions of “bodies without organs” through later works that invoke innards, fluids and limbs. This catalog accompanying her New Museum exhibition features an interview with the artist by Lea Vergine, a new text by writer Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer, and a contribution by artist Danh Võ.