Page 94 - ARTE!Brasileiros #42

ICONOGRAPHY & INSUBORDINATION ENGLISH VERSION

In 1977, Ferrari and his family leave Argentina and move to Brazil, STORY WOMEN | PAGES 66 TO 71
except for Ariel, his youngest son, who remains in Buenos Aires and
is killed by the repression in the military dictatorship. For Ferrari, INSIDIOUS, GENDER
“art is not organized from forms and styles, but from ideological
coincidences that lead artists to group together, even when they INEQUALITY IS ALSO
he arrived in Brazil, where he remained for 15 years, he settled in AT ART WORLD
subscribe to different esthetic tendencies.” In this spirit, when

São Paulo and approached the Ateliê Aster group, a place of work
and conviviality that was based in Perdizes neighborhood and was DESPITE BEING MAJORITY IN VISUAL ARTS COURSES, WOMEN ARE
directed by Walter Zanini, Regina Silveira, Donato Ferrari and Julio WORST REPRESENTED IN MOST INSTANCES
Plaza. Regina recalls that Ferrari came to visit her in 1978, interested
in what she taught in lithography. “The artists, at the time, worked BY MARIA HIRSZMAN
with photographic images, photo-mechanical images, in stones or
metal arrays. Ferrari wanted to learn this procedure to do his work WITH MARCH arriving in Brazil, resurfaces a very old and urgent
with reversing texts “. During his experience at the Aster, he invented issue: the lowest representation of women in Brazilian art scene.
the exhibition Gerox, a mixture of engraving and photocopies, of When looking at the schedule of the main institutions and galleries
which Mira Schendel participates. Under the curatorship of Walter it is possible to notice an emphasis on women artists’presence.
Zanini, Ferrari and Regina participate in the 21st São Paulo Art The list is extensive and includes important names of brazilian art,
Biennial, in 1981, when the critic gives a great turning point in the from different generations. Among the attractions stand out Anna
event concept. It eliminates the sampling of works by countries, like Bella Geiger ‘s exibition at Caixa Cultural SP; Jeanette Musatti at
Venice, and exposes them by analogy of language, as it still does Galeria Bolsa de Arte and Laura Vinci, at Galeria Nara Roesler.
today. Both, within this novelty, put works in micro film, “we were The museums also reserve good surprises: Mira Schendel at MAM;
the unique representatives of that language”. Maria Auxiliadora, on Masp; Josely Carvalho on MAC; and Hilma af
In his first phase in São Paulo he makes woodcuts, photocopies and Klint (1862-1944) at the Pinacoteca do Estado (see page 32). Such
resumes the wire sculptures, started in 1961, which Aracy Amaral density, however, doesn’t conceal the uneven structure that has
called “linear galaxies”. His great moment in São Paulo is the sound been perpetuated year after year.
sculptures exhibited in Pinacoteca de São Paulo, when the critic Beeing the majority of students in courses of Visual Arts, women are
Fábio Magalhães, then director of the museum, supports him. When worst represented in all instances. In-depth studies are still missing,
constructing Berimbau, that emits sound when touched, Leon decided but some quantitative information show distortions. According to
to use sculptures like musical instruments that “dance their own researcher Bruna Fetter, there is no record of national institution
music”. The musician Caito Marcondes, invited by Michelle Brill (Grupo that has in its collections more than 30% of women artists works.
Quebranto), records and amplifies the sound of these sculptures in The list of artists represented by major galleries in the country also
dance music for the song Tarot. Some of these pieces are now in shows a much larger weight of men. And a recent survey, published
the exhibition Esculturas para ouvir, curated by Cauê Alves, at the by #arteparaquem at Instagram, reveals that among São Paulo’s
Brazilian Museum of Sculpture, MuBE. main cultural institutions, only Vídeobrasil has a majority of women
In 1991, Ferrari returns to Argentina where he continues an making decisions. Bienal, where 73% of decision-making positions
intense, courageous and provocative work, only interrupted are occupied by men, comes in second place. In other institutions
in 2013, when he died at 93. The timelessness of León’s work the imbalance is even greater.
remains alive, moving museums and institutions around the world. But not always the web of invisibility is so evident. Often the
The Augusto y León Ferrari Foundation is already working on barriers are more insidious, masked. And usually are associated
a catalogue raisonné of León with the coordination of Andrea with other forms of exclusion, not only related to the genre,
Wain, in partnership with Buenos Aires but also racial and geopolitical issues. The celebrated arrival of
Museum of Modern Art, MAMBA. This year, the Taller Ferrari Tarsila do Amaral to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New
opens the doors in Buenos Aires, where Leon worked most of York, is an example of this slow process of absorption of the
his life. In this same direction, Italy presents, in September, a minorities by the mainstream. The situation is even more difficult
retrospective of the work of his father Augusto Ferrari, at the when acute problems such as gender and race discrimination
Albertina Academy of Torino. are at the heart of the work. This is the case, for instance, of
Almost unimaginable last year, Palabras Ajenas, work done during Maria Auxiliadora (1935-1974), remembered now by Masp in
the Vietnam War, with excerpts from speeches by politicians, popes, curatorial shaft “Transatlantic Stories”, chosen by the museum
Hitler, Christ, among other 108 personalities, set up as dialogue to guide it’s 2018 programming (in 2019 will be the institution
between them, was staged in full during eight hours in the RedCAT deal with the womens’s art). Simplistically associated to the label
Carl Arts exhibition at the Pacific Standard Time project in Los of “primitive” Maria Auxiliadora, a self-taught painter, developed
Angeles. From there, the opera traveled to the Pérez Art Museum a quite combative work, giving visibility to black and popular
in Miami, where it can be seen until April 14. In parallel, The Reina culture. Discovered by great critic (Mario Schenberg and Pietro
Sofia Museum in Madrid prepares a tour around Europe for 2020. Maria Bardi) she had a moment of significant success in the 70’s
The validity of the work by Leon is the testimony of a perfect and the 80’s, and then dropped back on the ostracism, for only
trajectory. now have this late and needed rescue.

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