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The seri., of works collected in Le6n Ferrarib manuscript drawings, a body of work crucial to the history of Latin American art of the second half of the twentieth century, concentrates on the artist's calligraphic pieces, "written" drawings that addressboth content and meta-content. Misleadingly humble in their appearance,they mostly look like scribbles, distorted handwriting, selections from nonsensical make-believe writings. They are, however, significantly more complex that that.
Untitled (marcadaN 408), ry61. Ink on paper,n y't5 x8 746 in. (3r x zr.5cm.)
Ferrari's Cuadro escrito l\Yritten Painting) of 1964, for example, describesa painting in such detail that it does not actually have to be painted. In this work, the artisr refers to severalthings: the relationship of the artist to the tool used to make the image, the relationship berween that tool and the image, the imaget art-historical references,its connecrion with calligraphy, and, last but not least, the relationship of the image to the readerobserver. In reference to a similar work, Ferrari explains what led him to create these written
paintings: [They] were generated by the criticism certain paintings receive for being excessivelyliterary: They are the product of taking this feature ro an exrreme. They are purely literary images: written visual art. But they can be included in the visual arts since they conserve the image, only that it moves from the wall, in front of the eyes of the visitor, to his imagination, behind his pupils, ignited by the words that construct it.'
'S7'hen Ferrari isn't narrating his own texts, he appropriates the texts (or images) of others, sometimes copying ideologically significant newspaper articles, for example. Like a medieval calligraphist, he transcribes and sometimes annotates them in his personal, semi-delirious handwriting, correcting or adding to the original meaning. By accentuating the calligraphic aspect of his works, Ferrari seeks to erase the distinction between writing and drawing.' In the caseof the former, the written line is restricted. Text is in Ferrari's composedout of stereotypedsymbolsso as to facilitate the transmissionof messages; into the surroundwork, though, it is opened-or broken-to allow the text's content to spill ing spaceand, thereby, to establisha non-semantic relation with this space.But even here the essenceof the content remains, albeit affectedin its objectivity by the changeof context. In this rension berween calligraphy and drawing, the works oscillate between understanding and incomprehension.
There is a noticeable tendency among viewers to try and find precursors to fTW {'rv'\ Ferrari in the work of other artists. And indeed, connections (of a sort) can be found. On the one hand, there is, for instance, an apparent intersection -fiiiYn*' ^ cv - \<"\ between Ferrari'swork of this period and 6 i;tr:^, { the early twentieth-century worls by Paul \p"u"1 , ,6*' Klee and Henri Michaux in which those r artists focus on writing. But Klee applies ,-i, i3r*"'4e* i .. .{,tFf'" himself to the areaof non-understanding eF',t. I * i { r f +^ by de-functionalizing and aestheticizing the discourse. Ultimately, Klee repeats the gambit offered by Duchamp with his Bicycle \Vheel (r9rj), in which neither bicycle nor stool retains its function: Indeed, their functionally destructive rlr 945-o; r'*r r'f-rys {f; combination obliterates utiliry allowing \^nrdrar,<g,F***&{tf only for the possibility of aestheticappreciation. Similarly, in works of the r93os, {sa*.Jrgnl}: r'1rr,} J;}&rnt&&\{it"* Klee destroys the function of writing \S#li&e,? &ffi5\i'4,;*n.tl$-r'r (A"fa"S eines Gedicht, 1938, and Absnahte Sl$'t {4": ,rlr I q t a 6' I -Y -:tlr 'itl aq "\ '> Schrift, r93r). Michaux, on the other Wo hand, works on the habit of writing, the / mechanics of the hand liberated from content (sometimes aided by the use of HENar Mrcn,'u ."r::::,r:rr:; Ink on paper,14 -,5r8x to yB in.bZ x z7 cm.) mescaline).He is also in searchof a universal alphabet, capable of expressing thoughts that are new yet understandable to all. Michaux may be closer to Ferrari inasmuch as he pursued liberation from the inertia of coded systems,giving his work political implications with regard to institutional structures,while Ferrari expandssignification by including suggestion.But while his works may sometimes formally overlap with these two artists, he generally remains much more within the tradition of calligraphy, where aesthedc appreciation is tied to the enrichment of meaning. Moreover, Ferrari exports meaning to shapesthat originally had none. In subsequent work of the 1970s, his repertoire expandsto arbitrary chessboardsand inhabited blueprints, symbols that become dienated from their original context and introduce their own meanings. , &
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Starting in ry62 Ferrari addressesmeaning in dictionary entries and printed text (though he often dismissesit by compiling endlesslists of words based on their musicality rather than on their significance).\(hen meaning becomesimportant in his work the followingyear, dictionary entries are not a final vessel: Rather, they are used as frameworks for the willful dismissal of typography in his own handwritten works. Unlike Joseph Kosutht work, in which the entries become the "game," Ferrari's works provide the rules for the game. And unlike later work by Lawrence\fleiner, when the act of messagingis of importance, in Ferrari'swork the subject is not messagingitself but political denunciation. \Working in a repressivepolitical situation created a need for immediacy and portability: The messageshad to evade censorship and probable reprisals. In these circumstangs5-unde1 which artmaking was often considered a subversive activity-the emphasis is on efficiency rather than on form. might do better to think of Viewers eager to connect Ferrari to somebody-anybody-else Venezuelan nineteenth-century teacher Sim6n Rodriguez. The childhood tutor of Sim6n
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cnirrcos que buscan-- l^' ) eon compiladores ;;;'iil" to'que tes I ";;;; que para leea cnitrcog l ( de las ldeas I I del mltndo | .-... 8on 'ullosotos iuzsar I U ,*a" t, I I d,el,as coisecucncias I \ile las obat ) La in0uencia del rrnto en las acciones se ha llamado rarrr,tsMo porquo el Entendimientoobra robre las Percepciones y porqus ( 6 la naturalcza las$ensacionessonconformes { y al Estado { ie los Sentidos ( lo" Sentidos,en todos no seformarian ) difermtesldeae I ei { fueran log mismos.v ( constantesensuefuiciones deun objeto invariable )
Bolivar, Rodriguez was also the author of SociedadesAmericanas in 1828, a book of great importance not only for its early call for Latin American cultural independence, but also becauseof the way the text was presented. Early on in his life, Rodriguez spent time in Baltimore, working in a print shop and learning rypesetting, an experiencethat equipped him with a way to present simultaneously both his thoughts and the utayhe thought. Applying this insight into his SociedadesAmericana, he broke up pages, reorganized lines into diagrams, and changed type in font and size until everything looked like twentieth-century calligrams.'lVlthout concern for art or formalism, Rodriguez had found a way to present his thoughts to the readerwith minimal erosion of information, and, along the way, to anticipate by seven decades the textual shapescreated by Mallarmd in his Un coup de ddsjamais n'abolira le hasard.
Lamayor FArALIDADdel hombre in el serepo socrrr, eg lro rrr{ER con sus semejantes
Since making the works collected in this exhibition, Ferrari has continued drawing and working on language and communicaPagefrom "Opiniondelautorsobrela Libertadde Imprenta'by TbmoII ObrasCompletas, Sim6nRodriguez,from SimdnRodriguez: tion (his more recent work usesBraille mes(Caracas: "Dinamicay Siembra," Universiry Sim6n Colleccion sages-often blasphemous-over reproducr988). Rodriguez, tions of religious paintings). But aside from their inherent interest, the group of drawings collected in this exhibition are significant in that they helped ser the stage for his increasingly overt political art of that decade (as well as that of others, including Antonio Dias and Cildo Meireles in Brazil, and Roberto Jacoby and Pablo SudrezinArgentina). His seriesof "Letters to a General," in1963, were his first overtlypolitical pieces.In 1965, he created a scandal by exhibiting CiuilizaciLn occidentaly cristiana lWesternand Christian Ciuilization], a sculpture in which Jesuswas crucified to a B-9 bomber, which was quickly censored.A few years later, he became an influential participant in the 1968 Tucumtin arde lTucuman Burnl project. For this project, an interdisciplinary collective of around thirty people explored the borderline of art and politics through a subversivedenunciatory exhibition about the exploitation of one of the poorest provinces of Argentina, in which starvation and death were indelibly linked to the military regime. In preparatory texts for the project, Ferrari wrote about his opposition to what he called "Rorschach work," open and lacking any engagement, and declared that 'Art will be neither beauty nor novelty, art will be efficacy and perturbation.", These texts contain the seedsof many of the strategiesthat conceptualist artists in Latin America (including Ferrari himself) would follow over the ensuing years, a path that, in many ways, developed notably and independently from parallel currents in the mainstream.
r. Lr6N Fennent, Ecologia biblica, ry96, text accompanying the series "Principio y fin de la Ecologia' in the exhibition "Eco: la riltima palabra," Palace de Glace, Buenos Aires, r996. z. "That form ofdrawing was interesting to me because writing is a good base to transform into drawing: Instead of inventing new abstract drawings, I distorted something known." Letter to the author, t /9 / o43. Le6n Ferrari, "El arte de los significados," mimeograph, r968.
-ir\()5,g...â&#x201A;Ź\', Untithd, ry62. Ink on paper ro 5,4x 8 /4 in. (27 x zr cm.)
L I ST O F \ T O R K S
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El hombresaliti coticnfu, 1964
InI on papcr 149116 x1 0 5 / 8 i n .( 3 7 x 2 7 c m .)
Ink on paper 9 7 1 1 6 x6 1 1 8 in .( 24xl 5'5q.)
Untitled 1952 Ink on paper 133l4x 9 7 l 8 i n . ( 3 5x 2 5 c m . )
Escitara deforndda I, 1964 Ink on papcr 8 ll2 x1 2 3 1 1 6 in .( 47x31m.)
Pimeu mtisica 1962 Ink on paper 13 1l4x 9 7 1 1 6 i n . ( 3 3 . 7 x 2 4 c m .)
Esoirura d$ormada 2, 1964 Ink on paper 1 3 3 1 4 x1 0 5 1 8 in '(35x27cm.)
Untitled, 1962 Ink on paper i n . ( 4 5 x 3 1c m.) L73l4x 1 2 3 1 1 6
La batalh esuba 1964 Ink on paper l2 x9 1 l4 ln .( 3 0 .5 x23.5cm.)
UntitbL 1962 Ink on paper 105/ 8x 8 l l 4 i n . ( 2 7 x 2 1 m . )
La rnuchachd estaba sentada" 1964 Ink on paper 1 2 x9 ll4 in .( 3 0 .5x23'5cm.)
Untitlz4 1962 Ink on paper 123116 xl 0 l / 1 6 i n . ( 3 1 x 2 5 . 5cm )
Majer si algun dla 1964 Ink on paper 1 2 x9 7 1 1 6 in .( 3 0'5x24cm.)
Untitled" 1962 lnk on paper 12ll2x 8 1 l 4 i n . ( 3 1 . 5x 2 1 c m .)
Swish and Suallow, 1964 Ink on Paper 1 3 3 l4 xl0 5 l8 in .( 35x27 cm.)
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Untitlzd 1964
Ink on paper
Ink on paPer
1 3 9 1 1 6 1 9 7 1 8 i n .(3 4 .5 x2 5 cn .)
97116x6ll2in.( 24x
Untitlzd 1962
Untithd, 1964
Ink on paper 133l8x 9 7 1 1 6 i n . ( 3 4 x 2 4 c m .)
Ink on paper x l 5cm.) 9 7 1 1 6 x5 1 5 1 1 6 in.\24
Untitled" 1962 Ink on paper 19rl2x 1 3 1 1 1 1 6 i n . ( 4 9 . 5 x 34 .7 cm .)
1964 Untitle{ Ink on PaPer 9 1 1 4 x6 3 1 1 6 it.( 23.5xr5.7cm.)
Cana a un general, L963 Inl on paper 13318x 6 7 1 8 i n . ( 3 4 x 1 7 . 5 cm .)
Untitlzd, 1964 Ink on paper 9 7 1 1 6 x6 1 l8 in .( 24xl 5.5cm.)
Unthlzd.1963
Untiilzd 1964
Ink on paper 123116 x 8 7 1 1 6 i n . ( 3 1 x 2 1 .5 cm .)
Ink on paper 9 7 1 1 6 x6 1 l8 in .( 24xl 5.5cm.)
Barjulzta cabrufiada" 1964 Ink on paper 9x 61l2i n . ( 2 3 x 1 6 . 5 c m . )
UntitlzL 1964 Ink on paper 9 7 1 1 6 x6 1 1 8 in .(24x15.5cm.)
Con unfalconete la adajada,1964 Ink on papcr 133l4x 7 1 l 8 i n . ( 3 5x 1 8 c m .)
Vocabulaio, p. l, c.1964 Ink on paper l0 1 5 1 1 6 x8 llll6 in.(27.7x22cm.)
Con mediastinoteixro, 1964 Ink on paper 14 x 10 5/8 in (35.5 x27 cm.)
Cuadzrno 3,1964 Ink on paper 10 l5116 x 8 11116in. (27.7 x 22 cm.)
Cuandnentrcal cafc,1964 Ink on paper 12 x9 7116in. (3o.5 x24 q.\
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This is number 48 of the Drauing Papars,a seriesof publications documenting The Drawing Centert exhibitions and public programs,and providing a forum for the study of drawing. The zoo4-zoot seasonof the Drawing Papersis made possiblethrough contribudons to the Edward Hallam Tirck Publication Program from FrancesBeatryAdler, Mary and Robert Carswell, Robert Duke, Elizabeth Fondaras,K"thy Fuld, Ellen Gallagher,Mr. and Mrs. JamesR. Houghton, 'WernerH. IGamarsky, JoanneLyman, Michael Lynne, John J. Madden, GeorgeNegroponte, The Felix and Elizabeth Roharyn Foundation, Inc., Shearman& Sterling LLB and Lily Ttrck. "Le6n Ferrari: Politiscripts" is made possible,in part, with the support of Dietl International Services.
Catherine de Zegher, ExecatiueDircctor GeorgeNegroponte, President Boenp or Drnecrons FrancesBeatryAdler, Chairman Eric C. Rudin, Vice-Chairman Dita Amory Melva Bucksbaum FrancesDittmer Colin Eisler Elizabeth Factor Bruce'W Ferguson JamesR. Hedges,IV 'Werner H. Kramarsky* Abby Leigh '$Tilliam S. Lieberman Michael Lynne Iris Marden Catherine Orentreich Elizabeth Rohatyn* Jane Dresner Sadaka Allen Lee Sessoms Michael Steinberg JeanneC. Thayer* Andrea'Woodner *Emeriti
DnewrNc CENrnR.PuBuc.r.rroNs Adam lehner, Exeatiuc Edinr Luc Derycke, Designer Ann Tarantino, Coordinator The Drawing Ccnter 35 Wooster Strcet NewYork, NY 10013 Tel: 212-219-2166 Fax: 212-966-2976 www. drawingpenter. org @ 2004 The Drawing Center
Cover: Untitlcd, 1964. Ink on paper, 9 7116 x 6 ll2 in. (24 x L6.5 cm.) Inside front ccver Untithd, 1964. Ink on paper 9 y'4 x 6 y16 in. (zl.S, x r5.7 cm.) Back cover: F.scritaradeformadar, 1964. Ink on prper, S y'z x rz y16 in. (47 x 3r cm.)
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