neurotitan

Ferrari and his family were forced into Brazilian exile in 1976, at the beginning of the Argentinian military dictatorship. It was there that Ferrari commenced the graphic work of his Heliografías in which he applied the blueprinting technique known from architecture. They include the series The Architecture of Madness of which selected originals are on display in the exhibition. Ferrari determined their print run to be infinite and accordingly marked them: x / ∞. These drawings reminiscent of city maps or geographical patterns he combined with Letraset-symbols that were originally used in architectural plans. People, trees, cars or empty beds form patterns that on closer scrutiny stage paradoxical situations – people cueing to enter empty rooms or locked into small cabins, infinite spirals of cars and cityscapes that seem to consist entirely of dead ends.

The Architecture of Madness transposes technical drawings into a narrative that can be read as a metaphor for alienated and uniform cities. These city maps lay bare the madness of everyday life. Yet the madness implied by Ferrari's title also relates to the feeling of constraint, of incarceration, of inescapability in a life shaped by fear under a violent dictatorship.