mima Press Release
12 February 2015
Ferrari motors into mima
A major new work has been acquired by mima and will soon be on display as part of
exciting new plans to create a permanent collections space for use by visitors and
the community.
The acquisition of Leon Ferrari’s La Joven Noche (The Young Night) will be an
educational resource and form part of mima’s wider learning and outreach
programme with schools and local audiences.
This work was selected at Pinta London, an annual art fair which showcases the best
modern and contemporary art from Latin America, and generously supported
through the Pinta Museum Acquisition Programme. The acquisition programme
encourages curators to purchase works to enrich their Latin American art collections,
supported by grants given by Pinta. Other museums that have participated in this
programme include; Tate Modern, The Essex Collection of Art from Latin America
and Paris’ Centre Georges Pompidou.
In addition to the Pinta grant, the piece was purchased with generous support from
the Art Fund, the national fundraising charity for art. La Joven Noche is a Braille on
ink drawing by Ferrari dating from 2000. Ferrari’s Braille series began in the late 90s,
during which he worked on reproductions of religious images – erotic or from art
history – overlaid with Braille writing taken from the Bible, or from writers such as
Jorge Luis Borges. La Joven Noche looks to merge Ferrari’s calligraphy and Braille
works and features a love poem of the same name written by Ferrari in his
calligraphy style and overprinted with a version of the poem in Braille. The poem is
taken from Jorge Luis Borges’ ‘Los Conjurados’, published just a year before the
writer’s death in 1986. Los Conjurados was written at a time when Borges was blind
and Ferrari was particularly interested in reading and translation through touch.
mima Director, Alistair Hudson, said: “The collection continues to expand the
definition of drawing, avoiding traditional drawing materials or methods. Drawing’s
current resurrection and its ever-expanding parameters are key themes that have
guided our collecting, and this acquisition continues our growing ambitions for the
collection. I am looking forward to sharing it with the community as part of the
exciting plans to develop mima.”
Regarded as a founding member of contemporary Latin American art, Ferrari is a
highly influential and internationally respected artist. Through this purchase mima is
continuing to grow their existing modest collection of Latin American drawing,
presenting mima alongside the Essex Collection and Tate as leading organisations
in the promotion of Latin American art.
Drawing has been embedded as a specialism for mima through involvement in the
Contemporary Art Society’s Special Collections Scheme (1998 – 2004) and Art Fund
International (2007 – 2012), allowing them to build a collection of post-war American
and Latin drawing. La Joven Noche nicely aligns itself with the conceptual nature of
works by artists held in mima’s current collection; Michael Heizer, Adrian Piper,
Cornelia Parker and Gavin Turk – and other Latin American works such as those by
Ângela Ferreira, Ana Mendieta and Jorge Luis Macchi.
The tradition of drawing has also been closely linked to Middlesbrough and the
region via the Cleveland Drawing Biennale, held in the town between 1973 to 1996.
Unique in its standing to refuse to categorise drawing to merely pencil and paper, the
biennale attracted the very best of contemporary drawing to the Tees Valley and
enabled the Cleveland Gallery and then mima to increase its standing of fine art.
This innovative, non-traditional approach to what drawing can be has been inherited
by mima and is a focus for both current and future collecting.
mima has big plans to put the collection on a pedestal over the next year.
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
For a high-resolution version of the picture below, click on the link, then right-click
and select 'save image as...'
Leon Ferrari, La Joven Noche/The Young Night, Braille on ink written text, 2000
Born in Buenos Aires 1920, Ferrari is best known as a contemporary conceptual
artist, known for his protest art. He employed methods such as collage,
photocopying and sculpture in wood, plaster and ceramics and often used text,
particularly newspaper clippings or poetry in his pieces. Ferrari died on July 25, 2013
at the age of 92.
Pinta London is the annual showcase of Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese
contemporary art. Itself a spin-off of Pinta New York, this year’s show was the fourth
edition of Pinta London.
The exhibition brings together works from dozens of small galleries as well hosting
stalls and talks.
Pinta’s museum acquisitions programme is designed to help major galleries –
including Tate Modern, the Pompidou Centre, and El Museo del Barrio in New York
– add to their collections of Latin American art. Under the programme, Pinta puts up
funds to buy artwork – funds which are then matched (or overmatched) by the
museums themselves.
Pinta’s museum acquisitions programme is designed to help major galleries –
including Tate Modern, the Pompidou Centre, and El Museo del Barrio in New York
– add to their collections of Latin American art. Under the programme, Pinta puts up
funds to buy artwork – funds which are then matched (or overmatched) by the
museums themselves.
The Art Fund is the national fundraising charity for art, helping museums to buy and
show great art for everyone. Over the past 5 years we’ve given over £26m to help
museums and galleries acquire works of art for their collections and placed hundreds
of gifts and bequests, from ancient sculpture and treasure hoards to Old Master
paintings and contemporary commissions, with 25% of grants going towards works
by living artists. We also help museums share their collections with wider audiences
through supporting a range of tours and exhibitions, including the national tour of the
Artist Rooms collection and the 2014 tour of Jeremy Deller’s English Magic, the
British Council commission for the 2013 Venice Biennale. Our support for museums
extends to the Art Guide app – the comprehensive guide to seeing art across the
UK, promoting a network of nearly 700 museums and galleries throughout the
country, and the £100,000 Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year – an annual
celebration of the best of UK museums, won in 2014 by Yorkshire Sculpture Park in
Wakefield. We are independently funded, the majority of our income coming from
over 105,000 members who, through the National Art Pass, enjoy free entry to over
220 museums, galleries and historic houses across the UK, as well as 50% off entry
to major exhibitions.
Find out more about the Art Fund and the National Art Pass at www.artfund.org.
Please contact Madeline Adeane, the Press Relations Manager, on 020 7225 4804
or madeane@artfund.org
mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, is an internationally renowned gallery
which opened in 2007 to bring together Middlesbrough's collections. With a policy of
accessible excellence, mima exhibits, commissions and collects world-class modern
and contemporary art from 1900 to the present day: its collections focus particularly
on drawing, ceramics and jewellery.
mima is part of Teesside University and a partner in the Plus Tate visual arts
network. Funding will be continued by Arts Council England and Middlesbrough
Council is a partner.
Contact Details
mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Centre Square, Middlesbrough TS1
2AZ | 01642 931 232 | mima@tees.ac.uk | www.visitmima.com