Miami, FL. November 17 | Pan American Art Projects is pleased to be invited to participate in Pinta Miami, with the work of León Ferrari (Argentina, 1920 - 2013) and Rachel Valdés (Cuba, 1990), specifically chosen by Gean Moreno for “Intersections”.
The works of the artists are related through the language of abstraction and the apparent order of the chaotic elements that compose them. Ferrari's work is made up of asymmetrical and amorphous lines as a representation of the critical word and of an external discourse directed towards the centers of mass domination; while the poetry of Rachel Valdés is based on an interior dialogue, self-analysis, and the recognition of being in matter.
Both artists intersect at the apex of abstraction, where their works transcend the established visual and spoken languages, and create their own language.
For inquiries, please contact us at miami@panamericanart.com
León Ferrari was trained to be an engineer, but became a mostly autodidactic artist. His work can be found in important public collections, amongst others: the Tate Modern, London; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Buenos Aires; Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil; and the Museo de Arte Moderno de México, Mexico City. In October of 2007, he was awarded the Gold Lion at the 52nd Venice Biennale. In 2010 The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York inaugurated ‘Tangled Alphabets’ a two-artist retrospective of León Ferrari and Mira Schendel. The exhibition in New York was followed by presentations at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid; and the Fundação Iberê Camargo in Porto Alegre, Brazil. At the forefront of pre-conceptual art, Ferrari’s career developed at a time when the question of language was particularly central to Western culture due to the role taken by post-structuralism, semiotics, and the philosophy of language. Ferrari worked in a wide range of art forms and mediums. He explored techniques such as sculpture, painting, drawing, and assemblage to film, collage, mail art, poetry, and sound. During his time in Italy in the 1950s, he produced ceramic sculptures stylistically connected to the European abstraction of the time. Upon returning to Argentina, he continued to create sculptural works of metal wires and rods before beginning what would become his most iconic works, written drawings on paper and, ultimately, installations, developing an organic style in which gestural forms appear both as abstractions and as explorations of the codes of writing. Known for his antagonistic political stance and artistic ethics, Ferrari obtained international acclaim when his work was included in the 2000 survey exhibition ‘Heterotopias’ at the Centro Reina Sofía in Madrid. Four years later in 2004, a national scandal arose at the Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires, where the artist had his first major retrospective exhibition. During the forty days that the exhibition lasted, 70,000 visitors passed through the art center, 1,000 articles were printed, and countless manifestations arose both against and in defense of the artist and his work; this mass outpouring of attention solidified Ferrari as one of the most important artists of Latin America.
Rachel Valdés graduated from the San Alejandro National Academy of Fine Arts, specializing in Painting. She has used different means of artistic manifestation in addition to painting and photography, creating pieces of Land Art, Public Interventions, and large-format installations. In 2016, she won the award granted by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Cuban Art Fund institutions and exhibited a piece in Times Square, NY. Another significant piece is Cubo Azul, which she exhibited at the XII Havana Biennial in 2015. (...) “I have always been interested in inquiring about perpetual and sensory issues. Many times I try to distort and reinterpret an environment through different elements placed according to a space... I look for new ways of living, by observing what surrounds us. I am attracted to the idea of putting the viewer as a fundamental part of the work, providing a state of presence, recognition, and contemplation, creating a dialogue between the subject, the object, and the environment. I refer to the dilemma between the different realities that make up the life of the human being, the mental and the physical, the objective and the subjective ”. – Rachel Valdés.
