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| Vincenzo Ferrari, La pretestualità, 1981 [Archivio di Nuova Scrittura, Museion, Bolzano-Bozen. Beni culturali in Alto Adige, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige. Photo: Gardaphoto] |
Vincenzo Ferrari was born in 1941 and was primarily influenced by the 1960s growing up. The universal impact of the 1960s was truly astonishing across the globe. Representative of a time stirring both faith and anger, the 1960s prompted an outburst of new philosophies and movements, truly exciting and ground-breaking. Historically established in the context of the Cold War, which would have a highly influential impact globally, mainly defined by the Iron Curtain separating Europe both physically and spiritually, and drastically marked by the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The 1960s re-defined all pre-existing expectations on gender, race, and justice, questioned education as well as morality and selfhood – for instance through the civil rights movement and second wave of feminism, as well as student political uprisings.
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| Vincenzo Ferrari, La pretestualità, 1981 [Archivio di Nuova Scrittura, Museion, Bolzano-Bozen. Beni culturali in Alto Adige, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige. Photo: Gardaphoto] |
The incredible escalation of mass consumerism also defined the era, generating new trends in marketing and advertising. Minimalism established the central idea that art should subsist in its own reality, and not try to represent the real world. Born of a desire to erase all pre-established notions about art, Minimalism became a radically progressive movement, highly influential worldwide, with artists such as Frank Stella, Donald Judd, and Dan Flavin as key figures.
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| Vincenzo Ferrari, La pretestualità, 1981 [Archivio di Nuova Scrittura, Museion, Bolzano-Bozen. Beni culturali in Alto Adige, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige. Photo: Gardaphoto] |
Minimalism became significant through the works of artists such as Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley, while Pop art was a fundamental by-product of the latter, at the same time critiquing and glorifying the popular culture. The iconic contemporary art movements that reverberated through the wave of the radicalism of the 1960s also had their own nuances and scopes, distinctive to different areas or countries. Spatialism, for instance, was founded in Italy by Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni, and its ideologies adopted by the Zero group in Germany. Across Europe, the philosophy of Existentialism deeply influenced artists such as Francis Bacon and Alberto Giacometti, who sought to depict the raw human emotions often associated with reflections on death and the lingering angst of the meaninglessness of life. via artland.
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| Vincenzo Ferrari, Untitled, n.d. [Archivio di Nuova Scrittura, Museion, Bolzano-Bozen. Beni culturali in Alto Adige, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige. Photo: Gardaphoto] |
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| Vincenzo Ferrari, from Scrittura attiva. 12 processi artistici di scrittura, Edited by Ugo Carrega, 1977-1981 [Archivio di Nuova Scrittura, Museion, Bolzano-Bozen. Beni culturali in Alto Adige, Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano – Alto Adige. Photo: Gardaphoto] |
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| Vincenzo Ferrari, Untitled, 1984 [Archivio di Nuova Scrittura, Mart, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto. Photo: © MART – Archivio Fotografico e Mediateca] |
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| Vincenzo Ferrari, A portata di mano Libro mani, 2010 [Museo MA*GA – Fondazione Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Silvio Zanella, Gallarate (VA)] |
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