ART-PRESENTATION:My Buenos Aires

The Greater Buenos Aires conurbation has a population of fifteen and a half million, making it Latin America’s third most-populated agglomeration after Mexico City and São Paulo. In the visual arts, decades of crisis and “getting by” have at least forgeda community of artists who, irrespective of rivalriesand conflicting views, face adversity as one.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: la maison rouge Archive

Artists have responded to the lack of infrastructures and learning opportunities by throwing open their studios, hosting charlas (group discussions) where ideas can be brought out into the open. Those who do manage to enter the global art market willingly put their own money into supporting local creation. The grant endowed by painter Guillermo Kuitca, for example, gave an entire generation of artists between 1991and 2011 access to a studio, and to critical and technical support with which to develop their work. The exhibition “My Buenos Aires” at la maison rouge continues a series of exhibitions that showcases the art scene in cities worldwide. “My Buenos Aires” runs counter to the romantic vision of Buenos Aires. The exhibition seek to offer visitors, neither a portrait of the city nor a “who’s who” of Argentinean artists, but rather a sensation, an experience of the dynamics at work in the Argentine capital. The exhibition moves back and forth between political and private, public space, the domestic and the unconscious, exploring themes such as instability, tension and explosion, masks, encryption and the strange. With more than sixty artists working in all media, from installation to painting, sculpture, video and photography, four generations are represented. Established names such as León Ferrari, Guillermo Kuitca or Jorge Macchi will join others to be discovered. More than 15 of them will travel to Paris to work on in situ installations. “My Buenos Aires” is an invitation to plunge into the mystery of Buenos Aires without attempting to resolve it, and to experience the unsettling strangeness of its multiple personalities

Info: “My Buenos Aires”, Curating: Paula Aisemberg & Albertine de Galber, La maison rouge, 10 boulevard de la Bastille, Paris, Duration: 2/6-20/9/15, Days & Hours: Fri-Wed: 11:00-19:00, Thu: 11:00-21:00, www.lamaisonrouge.org