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A posthumous recognition of Leon Ferrari’s „obsessions”.
Buenos Aires, May 17 (EFE).- Leon Ferrari (1920-2013), known for his provocation and extreme denunciations of power, is one of the most important Argentine artists of the 20th century, the owner of countless „obsessions.” A recent exhibition at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires features. Under the title „Recurrences,” the exhibition features nearly 250 works by the Buenos Aires artist, including his most controversial and censored work, „Western and Christian Civilization,” in which a crucified Christ is depicted on an American fighter jet. An allegory about the relationship between religion, politics and violence. „Leon Ferrari was an artist who crossed all borders and gained international recognition that makes us proud as Argentines. He has not seen the best exhibition at the National Museum of Fine Arts,” the museum’s director, Andrés Dubrat, admitted in statements. EFE. and Curator of the Exhibition. Organized in collaboration with the Augusto and Leon Ferrari Foundation, his works offer an archaeological journey through the most representative works of this artist to criticize the complicity of religion with the arbitrary, powerful and unequal nature of dictatorships. Contemporary life. In the exhibition, which runs until August 13, visitors can see some of Ferrari’s signature drawings, collages, engravings and ceramics, who maintained a more or less consistent thematic coherence throughout his career as an artist. „He was not an artist who closed themes, like Picasso, who went from one period, closed and went to another, on the contrary, he had certain obsessions throughout his life and he approached them in a different way”, insists Duprad. Responsible for producing programs with Cecilia Rabozzi. Scheduled for March 2020 and suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, the exhibition aims to partially compensate for Ferrari’s absence from the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires; In Duprat’s words, a „rather noiseless boycott” given the artist’s international status. „This is the most anticipated exhibition by us at the museum, but it is a shame that the entire Argentine art community (…) did not dedicate a private exhibition to Leon Ferrari when he was alive,” says the title of the company. Divided into four thematic axes, without pre-defined chronology, it „recombines” more than a century of Ferrari’s work (1960-2011), where „hope”, „humor” and „mischievous” are present. Characteristic of this artist. So, beyond „La Civilization Occidental y Christiana”—the piece that was highly praised by those who attended the opening—stands out are works like „Justice,” which shows an embalmed bird in a cage and a scale full of excrement below it. There was no shortage of criticism of the previous Argentine civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983), with newspaper clippings from the time suggesting crimes against humanity were already being committed; Or the Catholic Church, a constant in his work that brought him face to face with the highest ecclesiastical authorities, including the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio, and the current Pope Francis. „He’s not a hermetic artist, and one has to get a PhD to see those works; instead, he has a very straightforward work that everyone can get at,” says Duprad, recalling Ferrari’s deep anti-war beliefs. , particularly, in his works against the Vietnam War. Ferrari’s decree of validity led to the opening of this exhibition to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the return of democracy in Argentina; One is based on the personal life of Leon Ferrari, who had to be exiled to Brazil and his son Ariel disappeared during the reign of terror. Four decades after these atrocities, Duprad insists that Ferrari’s work is still fully valid today because it affects issues that „still exist” today. „Today we have the war in Ukraine and Russia, the problem of immigrants in Europe, the problem of borders in the United States and Mexico … This work, in a way, helps to point out the same problems, I believe. , we are going to overcome”, says the director of the National Museum of Fine Arts. Javier Castro Bugarín (c) EFE Agency