Page 93 - ARTE!Brasileiros #42

in 2006, and Anish Kapoor, in 2002, have occupied the site, but production. The curator warns about the concept of activism and
certainly the image marks the Turbine Hall is the work created by insubordination expressed in his works. “It is soon perceived that
Olafur Eliasson, in 2003, with a perfect representation of a sunset, the key to ‘activism’ is reductive in explaining the monumentality of
which made hundreds of people scattered all over the place. Next a work which comprises an extraordinary collection of reproductions
year, has just been announced, will be Cuban Tania Bruguera’s collected from the history of art.”
turn to occupy the site, which will surely bring a political character, Ferrari’s work took its toll in the 1960s with the wire sculptures
hardly so playful and popular as what you got with Superflex’s One performed in Milan and exhibited at the Pater gallery, interpreted
Two Three Swing!. as “drawings in space with more light than the body, a sparkling
explosion.” An instinctive reaction to literature has made Ferrari a
COVER EXHIBITION | PAGES 58 TO 64 reader of Borges, Sade, Gombrowicz and Cortázar. In the writings
LEÓN FERRARI, FOR A with deformed letters seems to appeal to them, as in the 1963 Letter
to a General series. The scriptures reveal an artist discontented with
WORLD WITH NO HELL his time. Luis Perez-Oramas, in the catalog of the show Enraged
Alphabet in which the work by Ferrari dialogues with the one made
by Mira Schendel, affirms that “the beliefs or disbeliefs of Ferrari
GALLERY NARA ROESLER MAKES THE FIRST INDIVIDUAL SHOW WITH happened to include a vision of Judeo-Christian sacred texts as
MAGNITUDE AFTER ARTIST’S DEATH IN 2013. CURATED BY LISETTE perverse called to the exclusion, torture and crime.”
LAGNADO, THE SELECTION EMBRACES THE PERIOD BETWEEN 1962 Everything Ferrari has produced, in various media, demonstrates
AND 2009 his keen creativity and chronic naughtiness. Re-readings of the
Bible, started in 1983, consist of collages in which he juxtaposes
TEXT BY LEONOR AMARANTE COLLABORATION PATRICIA ROUSSEAUX images of Christian religious iconography or art history with
oriental erotic images. In his Brailles series, he punches illustrations
HOW TO UNDERSTAND the “poetic phenomenon” León Ferrari? and photographic reproductions of works by artists such as Giotto
The answer could come from voices such as the filmmaker Fernando and Michelangelo to write poems or passages in the language
Birri, the writer Julio Cortázar, the critics Andrea Giunta and Walter of the visually impaired. Ferrari was said to be influenced by the
Zanini and artist Regina Silveira. With his tinged by the desire for blindness of Borges, who wrote love poems that delighted him.
justice, the life of the Argentinean artist is inserted in the troubled “A love poem about a naked woman’s photograph, Borges said,
changes of the contemporaneity. means you have to pet the woman to read what the poem says.
With obligatory works in the compendium of contemporary art, That’s when I got the idea. “ Under the Borges effect, he creates
which oscillates between Eros and Thanatos, Ferrari weaves a series of works superimposed on the photographs of Man Ray,
sophisticated record of both. Ferrari is not unanimity, he and his reproductions of Kitagawa Utamaro and paintings by Giotto and
work have already beaten and got beaten up a lot, what made by Fra Angelico.
him a brave witness to the destruction of the substance of human He composes the calligraphic series, such as the emblematic Cuadro
relations. Over sixty years of art, he lived in the swimming against Escritura, written in 1964, developed with a complex and gestural
the system’s tide, being pushed to hell to emerge even stronger. text, in which Ferrari describes what he would do if he knew how to
Ferrari watches the world and transfigures it in texts / graphs paint and incites diverse reflections. Luis Camnitzer, a Uruguayan
that point to submerged dimensions in daily life. Part of his work critic with fine thinking, emphasizes that the work precedes proposals
composes the retrospective León Ferrari, for a world with no Hell comparable to that of the artist Joseph Kosuth. The critique Mari
at Nara Roesler Gallery in São Paulo from April 10 and at its New Carmen Ramírez sees his work as “a central example of a particular
Yorker head office from April 26. inflection of Latin American conceptualism, more focused on
The show in São Paulo is a panoramic flight that reveals the “young” relations with the political context of the insertion of the active
Ferrari as a timeless artist, a man who did not waste time with social subject in the communicational circuit than on the empirical
superficial criticism, he was a rigorous researcher of the esthetics of properties of language”.
language, interpreting the universe as he wished. Poetic, Dionysian From 1980 to 1986, the artist works on polyester plans inserting
and anticlerical traces fill the space of the exhibition, curated by images of Letraset that he uses in large-scale blueprints. Among all
Lisette Lagnado, who brought together the works with Anna Ferrari, the works, Ferrari is notable for La Civilización Occidental y Cristiana,
architect, granddaughter of the artist and director of the Fundación of 1965, in which he places Christ crucified on a North American
Augusto y León Ferrari Arte y Acervo (FALFAA), which priority is fighter-bomber plane, at the Vietnam War. Many years later, the same
preservation, cataloging and dissemination of the work and archives, piece was exhibited at the León Ferrari-Retrospectiva exhibition,
of Leon and his father, the architect, painter and photographer curated by Andrea Giunta, at the Recoleta Cultural Center in Buenos
Augusto César Ferrari (1871-1970). The retrospective is already part Aires, and irritated, at that time, the archbishop Jorge Bergoglio,
of the Foundation’s actions. now Pope Francisco. His text burns the wrath of Catholics who
More than seventy works produced in pencil, ink, watercolor, wires, invade the rooms and destroy some pieces and the show is closed.
xerography, heliographs and Braille collages made between 1962 Three years later, in 2007, the same work, curated by Robert Storr,
and 2009, reveal the preferences of Ferrari in the artistic-political- receives the Golden Lion at the 52nd Venice International Biennial.
cultural field. Lisette highlights the public figure of the artist who La Civilización Occidental y Cristiana proves its capacity of resistance
became an inseparable part of his extensive and multifaceted as a transforming agent through time.

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