A pending subject is settled. For the first time, in an anthological exhibition, the work of León Ferrari is exhibited in all its aesthetic and critical magnitude at the National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA).
Until August 13, and from this Tuesday, the public will be able to see Recurrences, a set of 250 works, in which collages, paintings, sculptures, installations, archive materials, texts, all preceded by the legendary Western and Christian civilization, which exhibits Jesus Christ crucified in an American fighter plane in the Vietnam War.
The history of this anthological exhibition, scheduled for the centenary of the artist's birth in 2020, begins precisely with the postponement of the exhibition due to the pandemic and Covid.
Mariana Marchesi, Andrés Duprat and Cecilia Rabossi. Behind them, the emblematic work of León Ferrari "Western and Christian civilization". Photo: Luciano Thieberger
This year, July 25, marks a decade since Ferrari's demise. The course was going to begin in the Fine Arts three years ago, to continue in three European institutions, to which the heirs of Ferrari donated between 50 and 60 works. They are the Reina Sofía Museum, in Madrid; the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands. But Covid changed the agenda.
The three European institutions, with health policies very different from that of Argentina, opened their doors and inaugurated their exhibitions successively from 2020, starting with the Reina Sofia, in Spain. The exhibition was titled Kind Cruelty, taken from Ferrari's book of poems and collages, in which he warned of "a cruelty so intimately mixed with goodness that it conceals it." And he also dedicated a few lines to his written visual art, which he defined as an "ecological art".
León Ferrari overturned a number of recurring interests and concerns such as religion, intolerance, power and violence. Photo: Luciano Thieberger
The exhibition then went to the Pompidou in Paris, where Clarín Cultura was able to visit it and observe the impact it had on visitors. On that occasion, the artist's granddaughter, Julieta Zamorano Ferrari, said that "León's work is a world heritage site. He made thousands of works, we are willing to give them and that the citizens take them. You need to show something different even if you don't like it."
Precisely, taking into account that there are those who may feel their religiosity hurt, at the entrance of the Argentine pavilion there is a warning sign. This discourages those who could attempt against any exhibited work, as happened in the Recoleta Cultural Center 21 years ago, for which reason the exhibition was closed.
The curatorship of the exhibition – in charge of the director of the MNBA, Andrés Duprat, and Cecilia Rabossi – follows the spirit that fed all the production of León Ferrari throughout his life: his obsessions, his questioning of Christianity, his humanitarian sense, his decision to leave a critical legacy. But it also includes other interests of the artist such as cities and architecture. Which is to say that there is no chronology of periods or techniques.
León Ferrari poured into his production his obsessions, his questioning of Christianity, his humanitarian sense, his decision to leave a critical legacy. Photo: Luciano Thieberger
"We are very happy with this exhibition, after so many setbacks. León Ferrari had not had any in this Museum and it seemed to us too noisy an omission, "said the director of the Museum, Andrés Duprat, during the press tour. Duprat clarified that the exhibition is part of a purpose of the Museum – worked with the entire team headed by Mariana Marchesi – which is to pay tribute to the great Argentine artists.
This anthological exhibition at the Bellas Artes, organized together with the Augusto y León Ferrari Arte y Acervo Foundation (FALFAA) includes drawings, inks, collages, engravings, objects, heliographs, plans and ceramics from the period 1960/2011, several from the Museum's collection, others from the Ferrari family and also from private collections.
Duprat and Rabossi explained that, throughout his prolific artistic production, León Ferrari overturned a number of recurring interests and concerns "such as religion, intolerance, power and violence." And with a sarcastic and provocative look, he reaffirmed his critical position on the Western and Christian cultural matrix, in an attempt to shake the conscience and enhance a questioning gaze.
All the exhibited works can be seen in an open assembly that facilitates the tour: there are four cores. Photo: Luciano Thieberger
The cores of your production
All the exhibited works can be seen in an open assembly that facilitates the tour. There are four cores. The first, "Abstractions", proposes "abstract" works, where the line is a central element, either on the surface of the paper or in the three-dimensional plot, as explained in the curatorship.
The second is Western and Christian civilization, articulated from the iconic work of Christ crucified in a fighter plane. Ferrari created it in 1965 for the Premio Di Tella, but it was "cancelled" (there was already a culture of cancellation) for religious reasons.
From that piece, León Ferrari opened a political line in his art. Among those exhibited are Manuscritos, Palabras ajenas (1967), Nosotros no sabe (1976), Nunca más and "Mimicry and hells.
León Ferrari was a free artist to explore the materials he later worked with. Photo: Luciano Thieberger
Ferrari's line on the wall reads: "I did uncommitted art, art for art's sake and stuff. To Vietnam. It impacted me like few things. In '65 I heard that it was done in defense of Western civilization. That's why I built the crucified Christ on the wings of an airplane..."
The third nucleus exhibits his "Hells and Other Devout Matters." Since the 80s, Ferrari has been researching Christian iconography, the Bible and questioning the very idea of hell. There are his series The Basilica, For Heretics, The Bible, Project Against Hell and Rereading the Bible, very impressive and at the same time moving for those who observe them stripped of prejudices and dogmas. One of Ferrari's phrases, plotted in this nucleus, says: "The worst sin for Christianity, after murder, is to make love for pleasure."
This anthological exhibition at the Bellas Artes, is organized together with the Augusto y León Ferrari Arte y Acervo Foundation. Photo: Luciano Thieberger
The last nucleus, "Cities and architectures of madness", displays plans and urbanizations of modern society, which the artist questions as "irrational".
León Ferrari was also a completely free artist to explore the materials with which he later worked. From plaster to cement, through wood, wire, the inks of his drawings, connecting them with writing, to inventing his own language with collage.
It was not easy to cover the entire work, Duprat said during the tour. And he stressed that the 2004 retrospective, curated by Andrea Giunta, "freed us from doing a retrospective and with Cecilia we were able to concentrate on certain points that interested us in her production. Precisely, the name Recurrencias, follows the themes that León Ferrari took up again and again throughout his artistic life," said the director.
Leon Ferrari (1920-2013). Photo courtesy of MNBA
Dismantling dogmas
The anthological Recurrences puts in tension themes that will necessarily lead visitors to question their own ideas. And it is the wonder of art: to provoke the ethical and aesthetic scaffolding of each one. As a complement, on the second floor is the exhibition of Augusto Ferrari, father of León, who was a church painter, architect and nude photographer, at a clear distance from what was the work of his son.
The granddaughters of the artist, Anna Ferrari and Paloma Zamorano Ferrari, were present at the tour. Anna told Clarín Cultura: "A third of the works, approximately, were exhibited in the European institutions, but most of those that are exhibited today are from the Ferrari family. As donations, abroad, between 50 and 60 works remained. An anthology of León aims to show the essence of his work."
There is also a continuous documentary screening of 2013, Civilization, by Rubén Guzmán, with unpublished archival materials, which completes the curatorial line of the expo and in the gardens behind the Museum the Berimbau sculpture is exhibited.
Since the 80s, Ferrari has been researching Christian iconography. Photo: Luciano Thieberger
Token
Recurrencias, by León Ferrari
Where: Museo de Bellas Artes, av. del Libertador 1473.
When: Tuesday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 20 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, from 10 a.m. to 20 p.m. Closed on Mondays.
Admission: free.
PC
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