The Art of Writing and Writing as Political Art in León Ferrari

Sarabia, Rosa

Bulletin of Hispanic Studies (2016), 93, (3), 303–326.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2016.19
Language: English
Pages: 24

Abstract

The versatile and prolific artist León Ferrari (Argentina, 1920–2013) was associated with the neo-avant-garde of the 1960s, in which a group of artists blended ethics with aesthetics and fused experimentation with politics. This study is an analysis of Ferrari’s writings as visual and political art, not only for its message but also on account of their questioning epistemological concepts bearing upon the place of writing in our civilization. These writings fill a far-reaching register, and can be: 1) artificial and, thus, illegible; 2) legible, although not always decipherable; and 3) manipulations of various appropriated source texts that create an alternative writing.

El nombre del prolífero y versátil León Ferrari (Argentina, 1920–2013) se asocia con el movimiento neo-vanguardista de la década de los sesenta en Argentina, en que un grupo de artistas fundieron la ética con la estética conjugando la experimentación con la política. Este estudio es un análisis de sus escrituras, en tanto arte visual y político, no solo por su mensaje sino por cuestionar conceptos epistemológicos respecto al lugar de la escritura en nuestra civilización. Estas escrituras cubren un amplio registro, y pueden ser: 1) artificiales y por lo tanto, ilegibles; 2) legibles aunque no siempre descifrables; y 3) apropiadas de variadas fuentes que manipuladas crean una escritura alternativa.

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