Agostino Ferrari, Italian Modernist Abstract Drawing, Gestural Lines

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Agostino Ferrari was born in Milan on 9 November 1938.
He commenced his career as as professional artist in 1959.
… Read more 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 See less