Ink on paper
Not on view
Written drawings by Ferrari are both drawings as texts and texts as drawings. Typically realized in an overflowing, ornate, and dramatic calligraphy, they feature sarcastic and politically loaded poems masterfully transcribed by the artist. Here Ferrari eloquently describes a statue he would like to create of Lyndon B. Johnson, then president of the United States. "Como Dios cuando mando sus arcángeles marinos a pelear contra los diablos" (As God when he sent his marine archangels to fight against the devils), the artist writes. The political irony with which Ferrari equates Johnson to God must be understood in the context of the artist's militant stance against American colonialism in Latin America and the Vietnam War.
Transmissions: Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, 1960–1980, September 5, 2015–January 3, 2016.
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León Ferrari
Argentine, 1920–2013 229 works onlineWhat is the political capacity of art? How should artists address injustice and violence? In 1965, the Argentine artist León Ferrari had a clear answer to these questions: “Art will be neither beauty nor novelty; art will be efficacy and agitation.
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Installation views
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Exhibition history
MoMA Exh. #2074: "Tangled Alphabets: León Ferrari and Mira Schendel", 6th Floor, The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art Gallery, April 5, 2009 - June 15, 2009
and tour: Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, November 24, 2009 - March 1, 2010, Porto Alegre, Fundacao Ibere Camargo, April 8 - July 11, 2010
MoMA Exh. #2152: "I Am Still Alive: Politics and Everyday Life in Contemporary Drawing", The Paul J. Sachs Drawings Galleries, March 23 - September 19, 2011
MoMA, "Leon Ferrari Memorial", October 11, 2013 - March 24, 2014
MoMA Exh. #2335: "Transmissions: Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, 1960–1980", 6th Floor, The Joan and Preston Robert Tisch Gallery, September 5, 2015 - January 3, 2016
MoMA Exh. #2512: "2023: 4th Floor Collection" Gallery 404 (Calligraphic Abstraction), January 6 - July 27, 2023
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