Ernesto Neto

Lacan - who had a thing for making connections of Last Names and choices (it's complex, but interesting) would love this. Net - Neto. Anyways, just before leaving Buenos Aires I went to Faena Arts Center to see an exhibition by Brazilian artist, Ernesto Neto. The installation invites us to interact with it in a playful way. First step is taking your shoes off and going into the heart of this work: a labyrinth of colorful ropes, soft balls underneath your feet and a beautiful combination of colors that intensify the experience.

The spiderweb- like installation called "a bug suspended in the scene" takes up the entire exhibition space creating a special, intimate and soothing atmosphere.

It's a great feeling to walk suspended on air. Hope you like it.

Aime Paine 1169, C1107 Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Buenos Aires Photo 2011

If you love photography, this month, don't miss Buenos Aires Photo. It's an opportunity to check out some of the best photography in Latin America and the world. The exhibition will take place from October 27- 30; hosted by Palais de Glace in Recoleta.

Photos kindly provided by: Gachi Prieto Gallery & Elisi del Rio Arte Contemporáneo - stand 19 - featuring works by Carolina Magnin, Gaby Messina, Lena Szankay, Arturo Aguiar, Daniel Kiblisky and Simón Altkorn.

Enjoy! xo

Visual Arts Prize

One way for Argentinian artists to become known is to win the Visual Arts prize that the Salon Nacional awards each year in any of its 8 categories (painting, etching, sculpture, drawing, photography, ceramic arts, textile arts and installations).

Salon Nacional was founded in 1911, with the idea of fostering Argentinian artistic development and this is what they've done for the last 100 years. Salon Nacional has always been recognized as a very important space where pieces of art are legitimated and aesthetic parameters are set.

Only a few days remain before the exhibition of the works of this years winners are taken down (October 16), if you have time, it is worth a visit.

Where? At the Palais de Glace, Libertador Avenue 1248.

Enjoy!

Exhibition: Carlos Paez Vilaro

The works of Uruguayan artist, Carlos Paez Vilaro, are on view at the Museum of Tigre this month.

Paez Vilaro is not just a painter, he has used and related to art in every way he thought imaginable. He has worked on murals, ceramics, sculpting, etching, collage and photography, he has researched Afro-Uruguayan culture and music for years; plays a percussion instrument called tamboril to the beat of "candombe" (popular music in Uruguay that has its roots in Africa), he has written "candombe" lyrics, poems and published several books.

At the age of 6 he got interested in art, he drew pictures he sent to children's art contests in Buenos Aires. Always feeling attracted to Buenos Aires, as a teenager he crossed the river that divides both countries and came to work. He got a job sticking the heads of matches at a factory and lived in a rented room in a hotel for people with low incomes, similar to a "conventillo". There, he discovered his passion for immigrants and the way their cultures mixed with ours. He liked music and dances which he attended in order to draw pictures of the couples in the dance floor.

The way he has lived through art is surprising. He has exchanged his work in order to pay for many of his expenses. Painting is what made him feel like doing things in life, it opened many doors for him: the door to the world and the door to meeting interesting people and making friends.

He took architecture to new limits when he built his iconic paradise in Punta Ballena, Uruguay: "Casa Pueblo", located on a bay, overlooking the sea, made of curvy lines in immaculate white. The idea of "conventillos" inspired his creation of this place. It has a museum, an atelier and a hotel.



















His second version of Casa Pueblo was constructed in Tigre, Buenos Aires, his home in Argentina. He discovered the place by chance while on a walk with his wife on the banks of the river.

Maybe it’s thanks to art that Carlos Paez Vilaro found unimaginable strength that kept his hope alive in the most adverse situation. In 1972, the plane that took his son, Carlitos to a rugby tournament in Santiago de Chile, fell in the Andes mountains. A small group survived 72 days in the snowed peaks of the Andes. Paez Vilaro travelled to Chile along with other relatives to support the search of the plane and possible survivors. When the search officially concluded and there was no more hope left, he continued looking. When relatives began to return to Uruguay, he stayed and continued to hope. People thought he was crazy.



















When he was finally boarding his plane home, he heard the crew talking to the airport Police that had come looking for him. A shepherd had seen two young men in the mountains. Carlos ran to a taxi and told the driver he had no money. The taxi driver placed his wallet on his knee and said: "take what you need". His son was alive: " I had whistled behind the Andes to let Carlitos know I was there, while the moon was looking at me from the sky".



















We hope you have a chance to see the heartfelt work of this artist and to visit Casa Pueblo in Punta del Este, Uruguay.



Post by: Valeria Peimer

Garabito

Ricardo Garabito "El Banquete" pencil, tempera and watercolor.
Courtesy Malba, Buenos Aires.


Ricardo Garabito's art is not frequently seen in Buenos Aires. He cannot exhibit his work every year because it takes him more than that to evolve. He is not the type of artist who would hang his work anywhere just to be "in" the artistic scene of Buenos Aires. It is only after working on numerous paintings that he feels he can choose the best ones and show them to the public. Born in 1930, he has exhibited his work only 11 times. That's why Malba's exhibition of his oil paintings, drawings and watercolors until August 29 is special.

Critics say he is a realist. He paints human figures and still life but uses color as the Fauvists did, chooses subject matters as the surrealists did, puts 3-d figures in 2-dimensional backgrounds and has a peculiar way of using light. Fitting him only into the category of realism would simply not be enough.

His topic is ordinary life. He depicts men, women, still life and a lot of plastic: bottles of bleach, bathroom cleaner, buckets, milk bottles and food cans. His most interesting characters fit into the category of "mersas", an Argentinism used in the 60's and 70's referring to people that did not take care of their own manners or personal appearance.

Some of his models have unfashionable hair cuts from neighborhood's beauty salons, men appear wearing white under t-shirts and women wear fashion items in their chubby bodies and in the most unfashionable way possible. Garabito's characters are anti heroes! His painting is ironic, borders on vulgarity and funny. He has seriously managed to laugh at the aesthetics of every day life.

Garabito studied painting for three years until his teacher - Horacio Butler - told him it was time to move on. He realized that if he was going to paint, he could not copy what other colleagues were doing in an attempt to fit in. He decided to be authentic, to be himself, and that, he achieved indeed.

On view at MALBA: Avenida Figueroa Alcorta 3415



Post by: Valeria Mendez Cañas.

Cosmópolis

Photo: Horacio Coppola

You've probably heard of Borges

Perhaps you've read some of his works and liked what you read. Maybe you've been to Buenos Aires before, and while you were here, you were curious to learn more about the author. Maybe you sat at the cafés he frequented (Tortoni, La Biela, etc), visited the National Library he once directed, went to Plaza San Martin where he took long walks or walked through Palermo, the neighborhood where he grew up. Maybe you did all of this without even knowing about Borges and how this all relates to him. To my surprise, I've had two or three clients very interested in Borges, his work and his life in Buenos Aires. It is thanks to one of these clients (a couple actually) that a few years ago, I had the pleasure of following the author's "footsteps" - this time consciously * and in the company of someone from AD who actually knows a respectable bit about the author and his life, unlike me.

This year, in the frame of Buenos Aires as Book Capital of the World, there have been many interesting events which I've been sharing with you. Today, it's about a new exhibition organized by the Ministry of Culture of the city of Buenos Aires.

“Cosmópolis, Borges y Buenos Aires” is an audiovisual exhibition, that explores the connection between the Argentinian writer and the city of Buenos Aires.

Created by Juan Insúa, “Cosmópolis" is an adaptation of the same exhibition that was presented at the Contemporary Cultural Center of Barcelona in 2002. This new version explores in a more profound manner this particular bond between Jorge Luis Borges and the city of Buenos Aires.

Through images and audiovisual material, “Cosmópolis, Borges y Buenos Aires” invites us to explore the evolution of Borges' literature with special attention to the way the author passes from a precise stage (Buenos Aires) to a universal city.

The exhibition is divided into seven sections that follow the work of the author in chronological order as well as a thematic manner:

-FUNDACIÓN MÍTICA (Mythic Foundation)
-FERVOR DE BUENOS AIRES (Passion of Buenos Aires)
-EL SUR METAFÍSICO (Metaphysic South)
-LA CIUDAD TRANSFIGURADA (Transfigured city)
-LA BIBLIOTECA INFINITA (Infinite library)
-EL HERESIARCA CANONIZADO
-COSMÓPOLIS


About 150 photos from photographers such as Horacio Coppola, Grete Stern, Humberto Rivas, Pepe Fernández y Facundo Zuviría help us situate ourselves in the city of Buenos Aires in different time periods, along with seven audiovisual pieces including “Fundación mítica de Buenos Aires” - corresponding to a poem that traces the poetic process of the foundation of Buenos Aires; “Fervor de Buenos Aires” which explores the Buenos Aires of the 1920's through moving images of that time period, allowing us to feel the city at the start of the century; and “El Tango” which elaborates a reflection on the origins and evolution of Tango, among others.


Where? Casa de la Cultura del Gobierno Porteño: Avenida de Mayo 575, Buenos Aires.
When? Tuesdays to Sundays from 14:00 to a 20:00hs. Til December 2011.

*meaning that this time I was doing it in order to understand a little more about Borges and not by coincidence.

happy weekend!

“Baiser de l’Hotel de Ville” from 1950.

An exhibition of 137 original pictures by the French photographer Robert Doisneau is taking place at Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, curated by Agnès de Gouvion Saint-Cyr.

The exhibition, called "Simply Doisneau" is simply fantastic!

If you're around this weekend, this is a good plan.

Enjoy! xx

Current Exhibition

Emilio Pettoruti, Harlequin Portrait, oil on canvas.


Emilio Pettoriti is one of my favorite Argentinian artists. I first came in contact with his work at a friend's house who had started collecting some of his paintings. The painting I set my eyes on was one of his famous "Harlequins", it was very small, yet captivating. I came across another "Harlequin" at an auction house a few years back, and again, I was astounded.

What makes Pettoruti's work so unique? You should see for yourself. The Museum of Latin American Art (MALBA) is holding an exhibition of his work dating from 1914 to 1949. The curatorial work done by Patricia M. Artundo is excellent, she keeps you wondering and also answers questions regarding his work.

As it happens with some great artists, what has made Pettoruti stand out was his ability to research and experiment the technique of the Italian masters from an active point of view, extracting what he considered valuable and applying it to his work in his own way instead of being a passive student.

The curator says, and I agree, that Pettoruti's work is of such great level because he used compostion, light, color, intensity, shade, tone and definition of tonal keys to respond to different problems or subject matters while introducing other variables that created ambiguitity, something he loved to play with. He saw ambiguity in surface vs. deph, movement vs. static; stability vs. instability.

If you're around, don't miss the exhibition! and tell us if you liked it!

Note: I've always been curious about art. I studied art with Cristina Santander, toured a lot of art galleries and exhibitions with her and Marta Belmes and I've been lucky to meet a lot of local artisits and gallerists and continue to learn abour art, something I love!
-Vale

ART IN THE ANDES - James Turrell

James Turrell Gallery opened this week, in the Hess family vineyard in Colomé, Argentina.

Very much in tune with Hess's passionate approach to art, the light installations are beyond stunning, enhanced by the gallery's truly, magnificent views of the Andes mountains.

KENZO IN BUENOS AIRES

World famous, Japanese artist and designer, Kenzo Takada opens his first exhibition in Latin America. The event showcases his plastic works at the new art gallery Lordi Arte Contemporaneo in San Telmo, Venezuela 617. The exhibition has traveled the world, stopping first in Munich and Morocco, and is a combination of paintings, sculptures and collages. The majority of the paintings feature women among pieces of cloth and stamps, although he also did include one of a couple dancing tango with the Obelisk behind them as an homage to Buenos Aires. Visit the exhibit Monday through Friday, 11am to 8pm, until July 10th.