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Agostino Ferrari
Italian Modernist Abstract Drawing, Gestural Lines

circa 1980's

About the Item

Agostino Ferrari was born in Milan on 9 November 1938. He commenced his career as as professional artist in 1959. In 1961 he held his first one-man show at the Galleria Pater, in Milan. Together with his friends, the painters Arturo Vermi, Angelo Verga, Ettore Sordini, Ugo La Pietra, and the poet Alberto Lùcia, he founded the Gruppo del Cenobio in 1962. In the same year he held a one-man show at the Galleria del Cenobio in Milan. It was at this time that emerged what has been the guiding thread of his work right up until the present day: the sign. In 1963 the sign was transformed into out-and-out writing, a multicolored and dynamic script; this was the period of the Manifestos. In 1964-1965 he made two visits to New York. From 1966 to 1967 his work showed a tendency toward plasticity that led him to investigate the possibility of putting the sign in relation with a Total Form; Lucio Fontana presented one of his exhibitions. At the same time, and up until 1971, Ferrari resumed his investigation of sign and produced pictures in which a transparent surface represented the Symbol-Sign, while the positive Physical Sign was in relief and the negative Physical Sign was cut into the surface. These made up the Theater of Sign. From 1972 to 1975 he sought to determine the psychological reactions that colors produced in him, and in particular the interrelationships of these and signs and forms. He gave the title Sign Form Color to these pictures. In 1972 at the Galleria San Fermo and in 1974 at the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnica, both in Milan, he presented Sign Form Color as an installation set up within the space 20,000,000 Light Years designed by Vermi. This work led on to the realization of a large-scale work in 1975: the Self Portrait, exhibited at the Art 6/75 in Basel and then in the Rotonda della Besana in Milan. In 1978 the desire emerged to return to the sign as a means of expression, as the only element that fitted closely with his states of mind. As a result he produced Gardens and Memories, works made up of sign-signals, as "gestures" in bright colors, in an attempt to develop a less rigorously theoretical form of sign-painting. Out of this experience carne his desire for a "refoundation." He held a series of exhibitions in various countries: in New York, Brussels, Dallas, Berlin, Bonn, Frankfurt, Cologne, and so on. From 1979 to 1982 sign resumed its predominant pIace in works that were concerned with time and memory. From 1983 to the present day his treatment of sign has centered on the Events, in which the sign is completely free of superstructures and is realized in its totality. Yet the sign is not just the equivalent of writing, it is a sign-symbol, an emblem, created out of sand as it is a material of great "tactile theatricality." Agostino Ferrari lives and works in Milan. Solo exhibitions from 1990: 1990 Galleria Francis Van Hoof, Anversa Galleria Lik-Forum, Amburgo Galleria Giancarlo Apicella, Colonia Galleria Borgogna Due, Milano 1991 Centro Steccata, Parma Galleria Allegrini, Brescia 1992 Galleria Panalba, Marsiglia College d'Changes Contemporains, Cloître du Convent Royal St. Maximin Museo di Roma, Palazzo Braschi, Roma 1993 Galleria Thomas Levy, Amburgo Galleria l'Opera, Napoli 1994 Sala Carlo Cattaneo, Consolato Generale d'Italia, Lugano Galleria Vinciana, Milano Galleria Breitling, Stoccarda 1995 Galleria Breitling, Stoccarda 1996 Galleria Lorenzelli Arte, Milano Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Ulivi, Prato 1999 Galleria d'Arte La Colomba, Lugano 2000 Galleria Ferrari, Treviglio, Bergamo Galleria A.Am, Milano 2001 Galleria Levy, Amburgo-Madrid 2002 Galleria d'Arte l'Ariete, Bologna Galleria Artestudio, Milano Galleria Kuranuki, Osaha, Giappone Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Ulivi, Prato 2003 Galleria Artestudio, Milano / Miart, Milano Galleria d’arte La Colomba, Lugano Galleria Ferrari, Bergamo Museo Civico di Crema 2004 Arte Silva, Seregno Galleria Roberto Peccolo, Livorno 2005 Galleria Il Castello, Milano Group exhibitions from 1990: 1990 Torino arte, Centro Steccata, Parma 1994 Percorsi dell'immagine Galleria Sorrenti, Novara 1995 Quale segno, Palazzo Comunale, Sesto Calende Palazzo Martinengo, Brescia Galleria Peccolo, Livorno Artestudio, Milano Studio Delise, Portogruaro, Venezia 1997 Stadtische Galerie Wolfsburg Schloß Wolfsburg Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Wolfsburg. 1999 Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Ulivi Aspettando il 2000, Prato 2001 Ferrari e Kubota, Galleria Mastuyama-shi, Giappone 2002 Galleria Terminus, Monaco di Baviera Premio Nazionale Città di Monza Galleria Artestudio, Il Gruppo del Cenobio 2003 Arteambiente 1974-1 977 la Salerniana, Erice (TP) Galleria Artestudio, Miart, Milano 2004 galleria Artestudio, Milano Miart, Milano Galleria Centro Steccata, Parma Artefiera, Bologna
  • Creator:
    Agostino Ferrari (1938, Italian)
  • Creation Year:
    circa 1980's
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 27.5 in (69.85 cm)Width: 20 in (50.8 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    Measurements include frame. Paper has waviness, see photos.
  • Gallery Location:
    Surfside, FL
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU38211859402
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