By Pame Aguirre Leonetti
The huge mural of American artist Barbara Kruger covering the abandoned grain silos of Puerto Madero was the perfect stage for the opening of Art Basel Cities Buenos Aires.
The impressive letters carry a powerful message: “You can’t live without us / power / pleasure / property / equality / empathy / independence / doubt / belief / women. Who owns what?”, and they are there, out in the open, yelling to the four winds.
That is the main idea behind the most important art week of the city of Buenos Aires, which started yesterday and will continue till September 12: to fill up urban spaces with free contemporary art and open the doors of galleries and museums so that everybody can go there.
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On this very first day, Le Banana visited some of the artworks that you can’t miss so as to tell you everything you must know about them and the renowned international artists that are visiting the city these days.
Our first stop was the former Cervecería Munich (Avenida de los Italianos 851, Costanera Sur). Inside, a dramatic floor-to-ceiling curtain fuchsia, red, and violet was surrounding, as if it was protecting, the green tables and Brown chairs which back in the 30s made up the historic beer hall designed by the Hungarian architect Andrés Kalnay.
It was Mexican artist Pía Camil artwork Gaby’s T-Shirt, an interactive installation made out of 300 secondhand T-shirts. The idea? That people touch them, get inside, get out, move them all along, close them and discover all the possibilities they offer.
Outside, hanging unframed from the open-air porch of the building were Vivian Suter’s unstretched canvases painted with acrylic and loud pigments. “I wanted to transmit the power that nature has in Guatemala, where I work. I am happy to be showing these paintings here, in the country where I was born”, says Suter to Le Banana, among the canvases that move freely to the rhythm of wind.
Our second stop was Museo de la Cárcova (Av. España 1701). We met there the artworks of Santiago de Paoli, Mariela Scafati and Narcisa Hirsh. Three totally different works with the same aim: to dialogue with the Museum and redefine its history.
To finish our tour on Art Basel opening day we went to Faena Art Center (Aimé Painé 1169) to enjoy Israeli artist Naama Tsabar artwork Melodies of Certain Damage. What is it all about? It is an installation made up of electric guitars that she herself breaks in her studio and then transforms adding piano chords or parts of other instruments to play them again. “I want women to write a new history from now on. I chose the symbol of the electric guitar because it has always been something very masculine. My intention is to make that act something of my own and then give it another meaning”, says Tsabar among guitars and amplifiers.
To Remember!
On September 8 and 12 at 17:00, Diana Szeinblum will activate Pía Camil’s artwork with the performance “Peep Show”, don’t miss it!
On September 8 at 18:00 Tsabar’s guitars will be played on an interactive performance.