Pasarela
Arquitecturas de la locura

Artist name

León Ferrari

Artist year born

1920

Artist year deceased

2013

Artwork make date

1981-2000

Artwork title translation

Footpath
Architecture of Madness

Artwork material

paper
diazotype

Artwork dimensions

height: 109cm
width: 153cm

Artwork type (categories)

Print

Accession method

Donated by León Ferrari 2001

Accession number

10:5-2001

Label text

As in Autopista del Sur, which is part of the same series of works on paper realised during his exile in São Paulo, here Ferrari finds inspiration in the maddening traffic of the megalopolis to create a narrative of distressing chaos. Pasarela depicts an intricate highway, filled to the brim with cars and entangled into two knots to form a looping circuit without beginning or end. Placed horizontally across the image is a footbridge with two rows of people walking in opposite directions, each going nowhere. These are ready-made symbols, commonly used to mark out the use of architectural plans. Impersonal and anonymous, Ferrari uses them to create a sharply humorous narrative of absurdity, a mockery of urban chaos. Each of Ferrari's series of plans was reproduced using heliography - another architectural practice - in order to create infinite numbers of the same original (hand-assembled with architects' symbols and print-sets). Reflecting Ferrari's desire to make access to these architectures unlimited, and thus to excise any material value from their status as works of art, Ferrari folded each reproduced plan and sent it through the post.
Gabriela Salgado

Last updated date

2008