Buenos Aires Salvaje-Street Art

First Published
WHITEHOT MAGAZINE
http://www.whitehotmagazine.com/index.php?action=articles&wh_article_id=1858
May, 2009

Almost by definition, Street art refers to the public scene; art against authorities, institutions or any “politically correct” artistic expression. Street art finds the way to express through many media and techniques such as wheat pasting, sticker art, stencil art, graffity, video projection, LED art, wood blocking, street installations, murals, and carries an interesting variety of ideals that move the street artists in many countries around the world since the mid 20th century. But some things relate them all: the bond art-politics, a strong subversive character and a powerful compromise with social causes.

Gallery Gachi Prieto and Artists of Buenos Aires present four personalities of the Street art in Argentina. It isn’t the first time the country experiences it; since the 60´s, street art was used to denounce oppression, misinformation by the media and government and corruption. But also, as time goes by, street art changes looks. What’s interesting in these four artists is that they respect a basic concept: to use the street as a canvas where to display ideas and make them circulate among people. They all offer a panorama of what is happening in Buenos Aires’s urban art world today. Defi, PMP, Tec, and Nasa (following the tradition of the pioneers like Bansky, Swoon or Twist, keeping their real names short and simple, sometimes even anonymous) are crossing the boundaries and invading the streets of Los Angeles (February 08), San Pablo (March 09) and Berlin (June-August 09), main centres of the street art, together with Bristol, Melbourne and New York City.

Patterns, posters, stickers, sprays, comics, pop art, tattoo, art toys, hip hop, punk, the popular culture itself are the main referents mixed with the artist’s personal points of view. They invite us to explore their creativity through an extremely contemporary show, where the actions started a few days before the opening night at the entrance of the gallery where a performance took place by painting the steal shades of the show window, such as if they were working on a large mural acting as a blind for the gallery’s interior where diverse objects, drawings and paints interact in the small room and evidence the different techniques and criteria.

Again, as some of the most famous international street art artists who relate their work with design, publicity and commercials, we can see their work not only in walls but in clothes people actually wear.

In the year 2000 some of them become the FASE group, producers of the Superfanzine Magazine. Together they participated of the Berlin Film Festival 2005, and were chosen for the Berlinale Talent Campus with the short film “Futbol Fase 05”. Their project, SMILE was accepted by OMA International (Office for Media and Art) of Austria to develop a videogame that will be released in Europe and the U.S.

BUENOS AIRES SALVAJE, by the curator Angie Roytgolz, turns the gallery into an arena that involves the public even without them noticing it. People passing by in the street, “get caught” by the intervention in the outside and confirm the experience in the inside. As Defi said: “we’ve been labelled by street art”

Gachi Prieto Gallery

March 31st – April 29th, 2009

Courtesy Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art
http://www.whitehotmagazine.com/
January 2009

Gloria Arboleda is a Colombian artist with an interesting point of view on life's complexity in the 21st century. She combines her interest in politics and social issues with innovative techniques; themes related to drama, violence, kidnapping, drugs, the environment and social suffering, many times presented incognito behind a seductive masquerade of intense colours and bright acrylics. The artist invites the spectator to think. Her art catches us by surprise; we feel delighted contemplating those large format images, and then suddenly we discover that something more powerful lies beneath the combination of formal elements. All her art is digital work that becomes tangible when printed on the acrylics; those acrylics aren't just the material component but the medium that relates the entire work through the engravings, drawings and collages. The story her work tells is not always a nice one, but the concept of change and hope is always present in those works.

Gloria worked with satellite photographs of Colombia's geography and while travelling by plane over the Guaviare River she was inspired to do this work. She turned the outlines she could see in the photographs into the roads followed by the guerrilla deep into the centre of the Colombian forest. Pieces like I'm not like you, Swimming Prostitutes, Main Concern or Bureaucracy, perfectly represent those remote regions of the country, invaded by violence without laws. One piece in particular, Tell me the truth, relates her concern about information and communication, something that is supposed to bring people together but which gets more complicated as we speak. This is exemplified with her own words "...The loss of ego comes along with the disdain for language, from and to the speaker. This happens with kidnap victims who do not have the chance to establish linguistic relationships with their kidnappers because the aggressor’s main goal is to make the victim lose every sense of confidence in his/her ideas". She also criticises people's lack of action or physical response to violence; people seem not to care. Pure Tropic 7, based on "Peace after the storm" (1896), from the German artist Ferdinand Schauss, represents a man's body abandoned on a beach after a storm. She relates fruits, animals and human behaviours, using oranges instead of people and a hen to represent their passivity while facing facts. Acrylic works perfectly as a fragile soul which breaks like glass, once again analogically, before the overwhelming facts.

But as I said, Gloria Arboleda´s work also seeks a change and positions hope as the main idea that should rule our lives. In Changing the history, she appeals to those issues that deeply interest our generation. Issues related to problems left behind by past generations that we are supposed to resolve; "It is the pronouncement of a change of mentality, at all levels. At aglobal level, an environmental level, an architectonic level, an ecological level and even an artistic level. The world realized that it needs a change; even if it is true that the 20th century has been the most productive century in human kind, this progress also left enormous complications whose time has come to be resolved", said the artist.Gloria´s work witnesses the cruel reality of her country, but at the same time desperately clamors for a change she believes will finally prevail and will certainly "change the story" for good.

Duchamp in Buenos Aires - http://www.duchampenbsas.com.ar/
Courtesy Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art
http://www.whitehotmagazine.com/
October 2008

Marcel Duchamp was certainly one of the most famous representatives of Surrealism and Dadaism. Every task or goal he wanted to achieve in the art field, as well as in daily life, was outrageous and controversial. He was a man full of secrets and hidden talents, and one of those talents was his passion for chess.Buenos Aires is actually celebrating Duchamp´s first visit to Argentina, 90 years ago. In order to honor him, several argentine artists gathered together to present their works in a tribute. This unique exhibition presents, as the main attraction and for the first time ever, an unedited document where Marcel Duchamp himself, took notes of a chess match played in France.The exhibition is focused on Duchamp´s ability to play chess, a skill he developed during his stay of nine months in Buenos Aires. Unfortunately there is very little information about those months, even though the information available is enough to show his obsessive compromise with chess.The document consists in a technical data card of the chess match that took place in Paris between Marcel Duchamp and the great argentine chez player Valentín Fernandez Coria on July 19th, 1924, during the first (and last) International Chess Tournament – Olympics. This manuscript, handwritten by Duchamp, has also his signature as well as the argentine’s player flourish with the certificate that certifies its veracity. The importance of it is to highlight Duchamp´s main activity during his visit in Buenos Aires: he played chess almost every night, becoming a “chess maniac”, as he said once.“Duchamp considered chess as a work of art; almost like a sculpture because creation started in the mind to turn later into something the artist could build with his hands. In a very short time, Duchamp started an interesting career playing chess, he was even internationally awarded; and that career started in Buenos Aires when he was 31 years old. He even said he learned with the best argentine teacher, but never mentioned his name”, said Marcelo Gutman, the curator of Duchamp in Buenos Aires.The document had an amazing journey since the day Duchamp signed it: his friend Tristán Tzará kept it for years and later gave it as a gift to the argentine surrealist poet Juan Andralis, who later gave it to the artist Hermenegildo Sábat, who actually owns the manuscript and exhibits it in this tribute, in public, for the first time.Duchamp in Buenos Aires presents as well, art works especially made for the occasion by three generations of outstanding argentine artists such as Xil Buffone, Eduardo Costa, Max Gómez Canle, Guillermo Gregorio , Marcelo Gutman, IMaDuBA (group of artists), David Lamelas, Emiliano López, Emiliano Miliyo, Esteban Pastorino , Gastón Pérsico, Provisorio Permanente (group of artists), Nicolás Radano and Axel Straschnoy. There’s a variety of paintings, photographs, objects, installations, drawings, sculptures and music to enjoy.The exhibition runs form November 8th, 2007 until January 31st, 2008. Fondo Nacional de las Artes-Buenos Aires, Argentina

arteBA-08 www.arteba.org

Courtesy Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art
http://www.whitehotmagazine.com/
June 2008

arteBA Contemporary Art Fair, turned into one of the most important cultural events in the city of Buenos Aires, and perhaps the most important one in Latin America in its category. Collectors and celebrities from all around the world visit the Fair every year. More than 30 international galleries participated in the 17th edition 2008, presenting their contemporary art options: galleries from Europe, US and specially Latin America (such as Brazil, Chile, Bolivia and Uruguay, among others). This year, the fair welcomed more than 120.000 visitors, even when sales didn’t highlight. The selection was a combination of emerging galleries and artists with outrageous not mainstream ideas and aesthetics, with the most prestigious and traditional galleries which presented their corpus of well known and solid artists.

The fair offered many interesting attractions such as conferences, debates, performances, installations. The Matching Funds Program (which gives money support to national museums to buy new art works) and the American Express Program (which donates money to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes of Buenos Aires also to buy a specific work) where two of the programs that participated this year.

The presence of the artist Malcolm McLaren, specially brought by Chandon, in an exclusive event prior to his presentation in Art Basel 08, was another of the main attractions.

Very interesting was the Tribute that arteBA´08 organized to celebrate the life achievement of three argentine vanguard artists Gyula Kosice (1924), Enio Iommi (1926) and Clorindo Testa (1923). All of them represent an entire generation, always seeking for revealing answers, questioning the status quo and never allowing their personalities to get lost in the groups they participated as artists. Debates were organized where the public could talk with the artists and present their own queries.

Black Box/ White Cube, the digital scenarios with virtual screens, also captured the attention of the audience. Basically video performances and digital animations of all types were presented. Many different aesthetic concepts took part in this initiative sponsored by Converse, with the idea of representing the avant garde of digital art; many countries participated such as Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Chile and Canada.
But certainly one of the key events was the Petrobras Prize for Visual Arts, 5th Edition. The Directors of the arteBA Foundation called for the 5th edition where one of the eight selected projects was awarded with the amount of $ 7,000 (argentine pesos). The idea was to use that money for its realization and exhibition at arteBA `08 at La Rural. Having been exhibited at the Fair, a second International Jury awarded the First Acquisition Prize with $ 30,000 and the Second Non-Acquisition Prize with $10,000. The prizes were awarded in situ once the works were finished. The Jury received more than 400 proposals, perhaps the largest participation ever. They selected the projects that looked beyond their own art works and also the ones related with the local art scene concerns. All the selected works presented diversity in materials, perception, concepts, imaginary, realization and procedures; none of them are trivial or regular, on the contrary they all assume a defying posture. Something brand new was that the winning piece was going to be able to be exhibit in a National Museum for a year, along with its own collections. Therefore, a new contest invited all the national museums of the country to participate. Mauro Guzmán (1977, Santa Fe) presented “Autocine Guzmán” (Guzmán drive-in movie theater) and won the first price. Marisa Rubio (1976, Buenos Aires) won the second price with her work “Quehué”.

The Chandon Young Quarter counted with 20 different proposals from Argentina and other Latin American countries. The criteria to make the selection of the galleries involved were not only the quality but the spirit involved in the art pieces. Also, the first edition of the “Under Construction” Award was released (name related with street signs at construction sites). The idea was to give money support to an artist younger than 30 years old and whose works were exhibited at the Chandon Young Quarter. The artist could then use the money for any art project he/she considered interesting. Giancarlo Scaglia from the Revolver Gallery (Perú) won the first price of U$D 2.500 and the argentine José Ignacio Pfaffen form the Cultura Pasajera Gallery (Rosario, Argentina) won the second price of U$D 1.500.
Finally, one of the most remarkable attractions was the second edition of OPEN SPACE. The galleries that participated exhibited large format works, installations and sculptures specially conceived to be presented in an open space. Proposals came along from Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, US, Venezuela and Spain, and twelve projects were chosen. The concept was to choose works from different generations of artists with absolute different criteria regarding art, but they had in common the excellence in the realization. The chosen galleries and artists: 713 arte contemporáneo (Argentina): Eliana Heredia, Alvaro Castagnino (Argentina): Nora Correas, Baró Cruz (Brazil): Fabiano Gonper, Cecilia de Torres (USA-Uruguay): Gustavo Díaz, Dabbah Torrejón (Argentina): Silvana Lacarra, Daniel Maman (Argentina): Bastón Díaz, Del Paseo (Uruguay): Rimer Cardillo, Ruth Benzacar (Argentina): Ernesto Ballesteros, Durban Segnini (Venezuela-USA): Beto de Volder, Galería Sicart (Spain): Leonardo Damonte, Wussmann (Argentina): Luis Benedit, Zavaleta Lab (Argentina): Sigismond de Vajay

Rene Burri-A world http://www.ccborges.org.ar:80/indexi.htm

Courtesy Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art
http://www.whitehotmagazine.com/

March 2008

A World; that’s the name of the retrospective that one of the most famous photographers of the XX century presented in Buenos Aires last February at the Centro Cultural Borges. The artist specially traveled to Argentina to be part of a presentation that puts together, in more than 350 pieces, the work of a life time.

Burri is one of those artists that goes everywhere and belongs nowhere. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, he took his first picture when he was only 13, with an old camera his father gave him. The person he photographed was the British politician Winston Churchill; not a bad start that’s for sure. His passion for photography just grew stronger ever since and during the 50´ he started working with the Magnum Agency. Magnum was funded in 1947 by the legendary journalists and photographers Robert Capa, Henri Cartier Bresson, George Rodger and David "Chim" Seymour and today it has four editorial offices in New York, London, Paris and Tokyo and around 60 members. Magnum Photos provides the press, editors, television, galleries and museums worldwide with exclusive images, but above all the artistic or journalist achievements, Magnum is still focused in its humanitarian spirit.
Rene Burri had the chance to travel around the world and he covered the most important events of the last century including terrible wars such as Vietnam during the 60´and 70´or Beirut in the 80´. He also photographed big social and political conflicts like the ones at the Suez Channel, Egypt, Iran or Mao Tse Tung´s China, among others. The interesting part is that he discovered the inner beauty within those critical situations humanity was going through. Rene Burri showed wonderful snapshots, captured fantastic scenes and nice faces in the middle of such terrifying moments. He also photographed famous personalities such as Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower, Pablo Picasso, Ingrid Bergman, Le Corbusier, Maria Callas or Alberto Giacometti. But one of his most famous achievements was photographing the revolutionary leader Che Guevara, smoking his cigar in his office, back in 1963 in La Habana, Cuba. That image was published by every single important magazines and newspapers in the world.

The exhibition counts with the support of the Embassy of Switzerland in Argentina and it is the result of the hard work of the department of photography of the Borges, Magnum Photos, the curator Hans-Michael Koetzle and the artist himself. The highlight in this retrospective is that it includes images and documents never seen before. In 2007 the artist presented them at the National Museum of Fine Arts of the Habana, and lately at the former School of San Ildefonso, in México. Then the exhibition arrived to Buenos Aires. Those documents and unique images were not taken by Burri´s journalist point of view, but seeking an aesthetic result. Burri never showed those images before and kept them just for himself in a box. The curator said it took him 5 years to convince the artist to reveal them to the world. But that is not it, the exhibition also contains along with the photographs, collages, montages, documentary films, books and magazines. Anyone could appreciate and learn how the artist developed his visual language as well as his intention to be some sort of witness of the social, political and cultural issues of the world during the last 60 years.

While talking to Telam Agency, from the Argentinean press, Burri said: “Photography is everything and also it is nothing; perhaps I use the camera as a third eye trying to avoid getting crazy in this world". He combines all his interests in a complex personality: he wanted to paint, to draw, to become a cinematographer and also he was full of dreams and utopias and wanted to work photographing that reality. But on the other hand he had a family to support. “I also had an internal conflict with art; the Burri schizophrenia”, he said to Clarin newspaper.
Rene Burri shows simple; he’s fresh and nice while talking to people. He represents thousands of stories; you can feel the presence of some of the most remarkable and also terrifying experiences people lived in past 60 years only by looking at him in the eye for a moment. But he looks calm and welcomes those who approach him with questions and cameras to capture his image. And he never stops, even in his own exhibition’s opening night, he carries his small camera everywhere and once more he photographs the space around him and its creatures. I guess he’s comfortable and secure behind that camera and that is why he gives those artists that are just getting started a little advice: “I recommend to the young photographers to stand behind the scenes, to stand behind the play they are living”. Hopefully some of them get the message and capture part of Burri´s spirit so we could still see, not only human’s pain and anguish, but also human’s wonders and charms.

White-http://www.ccborges.org.ar/

Courtesy Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art
http://www.whitehotmagazine.com/
February 2008

White is obviously a color. White could represent, for the occidental culture, the incarnation of every immaculate object we imagine. White could be the synonym of purity, integrity, chastity. White could be shinny and sparkling; white relates with everything that’s clean, fresh and tidy. But some other cultures do not feel they should bond white with those concepts but with some others that could be the exact opposite. White, sometimes, embodies death and mourning.
The WHITE exhibition, taking place at one of the most prestigious art centers in Buenos Aires until February, combines every aspect enclosed in each definition or association people make when thinking about white. More than thirty artists from different countries (most of them from Argentina, but also from other Latin-American countries and Europe) present a couple of works each, where they express the kind of relationship they establish with the idea of whiteness. Sculptures, paintings, drawings, photographs, installations; all types of artistic expressions have a place in the exhibition and the contrast between the different perspectives from which they approach the subject, turns shocking. Absolute opposite ideas, drastic points of view combining abstraction and figuration, all kinds of egos and sensibilities only linked by the proposal of the curators, Florencia Braga Menendez and Gachi Prieto. And the result turned out to be fantastic. White is everywhere, even in those works where it is hard to find some, the lack of white makes it highlight. “White is the medium; it’s a way to see, to be seen, to clarify; an enlighten way to take conscience. These works of art reduce, alienate the power of the eye and the light, they are silent works and at the same time they are full of virtual speeches. What matters is the adventure and experience of vision” said the curator Florencia Braga Menendez.
To define the exhibition and put some kind of label could be troubled and complicated. The first impression for the spectator is that variety domains the entire scenario. There’s only one thing in common and nothing else but it: the criteria to follow the indications of whatever the concept of white awakes in each artist. Every aesthetic and formal resource participates when it comes to make white’s omnipresence something obvious. White is everywhere. White appears as the opposite of black, as the alter ego of blindness and as the most powerful representation of the unique color that could assume all the other at the same time. Wherever there’s light, white is present; wherever there’s darkness, white is present by omission. Each one of the art works (almost a hundred pieces) tells a story independently; they would never share the same room in another situation. But when the spectator starts walking around, finds the inevitable connection that gathers them together. Differences turn into interesting points of view that reflects those multiple interpretations humans have of every single concept or idea. Something that seems so simple, such as the task to represent white (whatever that means), suddenly turned the scene into an arena where the most different ways to understand the proposal, could share and relate in the same habitat; an arena that doesn’t look at all as a roman circus but a place that allows the “other” to co-exist. Completely radical ways of thinking, working, creating that invite us to know multiple phenomenal interpretations.
As the curator Braga Menendez said, “the tension is focused in white and everybody is dancing at their own pace, the same song”. So, the entire exhibition seems to be acting as an enormous mirror where it would be great we could see our reflection and learn how to act in “real life” with such tolerance between each other. Wouldn’t it be great?

Artists: Alejandro Dron / Alejandro Tosso / Ana Lizaso / Andres Sobrino / Andres Waissman / Blas Castagna / Bruno Dubner / Carlos Herrera / Carmelo Arden Quin / Chino Soria / Cristina Schiavi / Eduardo Stupia / Elba Bairon / Hernan Salamanca / Irene Banchero / Juan Andrés Videla / Karina Peisajovich / Katinka Pilscheur / Leonel Luna / Lux Lindner / Maria Luisa Mac Kay / Marina Sábato / Martín Di Paola / Pablo Lozano / Pompi Gutnisky / Rafael Gonzalez Moreno / Rob Verf / Tulio De Sagastizabal / Verónica Di Toro / Vivi Zargon

The exhibition runs form January 10th until February 3rd, 2008. Centro Cultural Borges-Buenos Aires, Argentina.