Dual Retrospective of León Ferrari and Mira Schendel at MoMA, 5 Apr - 15 Jun

Exhibition Description:

This is a Dual Retrospective of Some 200 Works Focuses on Abstraction, Language-Based Works, and the Artists' Significant Contributions to Contemporary Art. It is also the first major museum retrospective in the United States to survey the work of León Ferrari (Argentine, b. 1920) and Mira Schendel (Brazilian, b. Switzerland, 1919-1988), and to explore their significant contributions to contemporary art.

These artists have been working separately over several decades in neighboring Latin American countries during the latter half of the twentieth century, each created an oeuvre of works of art fundamentally based in language. During a time when Western artists were incorporating letters, words, text, and language as a functional component of their art, both Ferrari and Schendel distinctively addressed language as a major visual subject matter, considering the material body of language, its manifestation as a written word and voice, and its use as a metaphor for the human world.

As contemporaries, though never collaborators, the two artists shared experiences of disillusion and exile that determined parallels and divergences in the art they produced.

The works range from diverse media, including ceramics, paintings, sculptures, installations, and drawings, from public and private collections in São Paulo, Buenos Aires, London, and the U.S., including that of The Museum of Modern Art.

Description:

Image: PAIR 8
León Ferrari, Argentine, born 1920
Untitled, 1988
Cut-and-pasted printed papers on black paper
10 7/16 x 13 3/8" (26.5 x 34 cm)
Fundación Augusto y León Ferrari. Archivo y Colección, Buenos Aires
© 2009 Fundación Augusto y León Ferrari. Archivo y Colección, Buenos Aires
Photograph by: Adrían Rocha Novoa

Full Contact Details:

The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, New York, NY 10019