Considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Leon Ferrari developed a provocative, singular oeuvre, structure on experimentation with supports, materials and media. Heir to a surrealist imagination, his practice dialogs with abstraction, pop art, and was a pioneer of conceptualism. Constantly questioning the violence of Latin-American religious dogmatism and authoritarianism, Ferrari’s work is a reference in the practice of intertwining art and politics. Persecuted by the Argentine military dictatorship, he was exiled to Brazil in the 1980s. After his death in 2013, back in Buenos Aires, Ferrari remains influential, a theme of an ever-growing critical heritage.
In 1955, he held his first solo show at the Galleria Cairola in Milan. In 1960, he exhibited sculptures in cement, plaster, and wood at the Galería Galatea, in Buenos Aires. In 1964, he developed the concept of "babelism", a notion that alludes, in his sculptures, to the Tower of Babel. In 1965, his work La civilización occidental y Cristiana was entered in the Premio Nacional e Internacional Instituto Torcuato Di Tella. The figure of Christ crucified on an American fighter-bomber was removed before the show opened under allegations that it was violent and offensive.
León Ferrari's practice is multiple and employs different languages, such as drawing, sculpture, collage, assemblage, installation, video, and writing. The 1960s signaled the themes that characterized his work: art, eroticism, religion, and morality, as well as state repression and the practices of colonialism and imperialism that institutionalized social injustices. León Ferrari is, in all of his expressions, a tireless activist and researcher who questioned the normalization of power structures and the verticality of social dynamics.
In 1976, he moved with his family to São Paulo to escape the regime of dictator Jorge Rafael Videla. He remained in Brazil until 1991. During his time in Brazil, Ferrari joined the circuit of artists interested in revitalizing different languages and engaged in the production of musical instruments, concerts, and postal art.
Among his group and solo exhibitions in recent decades, León Ferrari: Obras 1954-2004 was held at the Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires in 2004, which was also exhibited by the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo in 2009. In 2007, on the occasion of the 51st Venice Biennale, he received the Golden Lion award for all his works. In 2009, the Museum of Modern Art - MoMA (New York) opened Tangled Alphabets: León Ferrari and Mira Schendel, an exhibition dedicated to the works of both artists. In the same year and in 2010, the exhibition toured the Iberê Camargo Foundation (Porto Alegre, Brazil) and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid). L’Aimable Cruauté, a large retrospective exhibition dedicated to the work of León Ferrari, was presented at the Centre Pompidou (2022, Paris) and the Reina Sofía (2021, Madrid). In Brazil, the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand - MASP exhibited the solo show León Ferrari: Entre duas ditaduras in 2016.
His works are in important institutional collections, such as the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zurich; Ella Fontanals Cisneros Collection, Miami; El Museo del Barrio, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Museum of Modern Art - MoMA, New York; Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires - MALBA; Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand - MASP; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, among others.