Biography

León Ferrari (1920-2013) was born in Buenos Aires and originally trained as an engineer. In the mid-1950s he embarked on a path as a self-taught artist. His early works in carving, sculpture and structures of ceramic, wood and wire were followed by an extensive oeuvre characterized by continuous experimentation with different materials and genres.

Ceaselessly in search of precise forms of expression for his ideas, he tested the limits of art. He is considered a pioneer of conceptual art, which, especially in Latin America, had strong political connotations. Another constant of his artistic (and personal) life was his tireless political, social and religious criticism and he was fearless in the face of public debate and censorship. A seminal work in this context is La Civilización Occidental Y Cristiana (1965) in response to the Vietnam War.

In the sixties Ferrari developed an interest in text as a pictorial element. Calligraphic drawings emerged, some as written images, others indecipherable. Among the latter, the group of works, Carta A Un General (1963) represents the difficulty of finding an adequate form of expression in response to the violence of the military dictatorship in Argentina.

He began to publish books in which he took an explicit stand, for example Nosotros No Sabíamos, (1976) which deals with the issue of forced disappearance, a theme which took on deeply personal significance when one of his sons disappeared in 1977 and Ferrari, with the rest of the family went into exile in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The first Heliografías, including the series Architecture of Madness (1980-1986), date from this period. In Homens (Homens, People, 1984) he used photocopies to print cheap books in his own publishing house. The first Esculturas Sonoras (1981) which were created for performances and interactive exhibitions also emerged from his time in exile.

In 1991 he returned to Buenos Aires, where he illustrated the book Nunca Más (1996), which was published by the newspaper Página/12. In 1997 he began the Brailles series, in which he superimposed aesthetic and critical texts encoded in Braille onto religious images and newspaper reports. In earlier years Ferrari had produced mail art and in 2002 he revived the practice in digital form with Electronicartes sent by e-mail.

A retrospective of his work in Buenos Aires In 2004 provoked fierce debates and attacks from the Church. The exhibition was censored and eventually closed. In 2007 he received the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale. As a founding member of CIHABAPAI (Club of the Godless, Heretics, Apostates, Blasphemers, Atheists, Pagans, Agnostics and Infidels), he wrote two letters to the Pope demanding the abolition of judgement day and the concept of immortality (1997) and equally the expulsion and destruction of hell (2001).

Until the end of his life, Ferrari worked intensely, exploring new ways to express the unspeakable about past and present human rights violations, torture, and intolerance.

León Ferrari "Palabras" ©Fundación León Ferrari