Patagonia has been a land of inspiration for many. Already in 1893, William Henry Hudson wrote Idle Days in Patagonia, a book that has been a reference for the Fundación Patagonica, a group of more than 40 Belgian artists who also used the Argentine region as a muse and without ever having set foot in the area.
Everything started 20 years ago, on a rainy afternoon, in Brussels. To escape the boredom, the musician Dirk van Esbroeck decided to tell his friend Dree Peeremans about his childhood spent in Buenos Aires. It came out that, for Dirk, Patagonia has always been a remote place and expensive to visit. The two founders of the association remained fascinated by the Argentine region. Due to its difficult access for Europeans, they decided to create a virtual Patagonia. A territory were everything is possible, a country of liberty and full of fantasy.
Exhibiting their work in Buenos Aires had been a dream shared between all the artists of the association. For a month, the Centro Cultural Borges will show the application of the Belgian surrealism to this virtual Patagonia.
To give a better overview of what the exhibition was to be, artists presenting the exhibition had the original idea to finish the press conference in music. Journalists had the privilege to hear the foundation’s anthem. For a moment I thought I was in Belgian café and only missed a good beer. This feeling has been recurrent while I roamed around the exhibition and I also quickly recalled the humour so particular to Belgian comics. The artwork presented relates to themes like the end of the world and the Patagonian wind. Penguins are given a place of choice here as they are seen as the main inhabitants of the region.
Also, if you are familiar with the country of beers, chocolate, and comics, you will appreciate the recurrence of “under the belt” references. A good illustration of this would be the transformation of Michelangelo’s the creation of Adam, in which, the artists dissimulated a fart joke (the old good pull my finger and I fart, will probably speak to some). Furthermore, you will have the chance to learn about the common sexual coercion between seals and penguin (you could also look up “’Sex pest’s seal attacks penguin” on the BBC website if you want to know more). Talking about penguin sex, my interest focused on a can of penguin testicles. Although, I did not have the chance to check the inside of the can, I was pleasantly surprised to see they were hand collected.
If this gives adds an important entertainment touch to the Fundación Patagonica’s collection, the curiosity does not stop there.
The Minds of Glass is a project of eleven videos showing the encounter of two artists of the new and the old world. The two artists originally started their work independently, however, Dirk Schreurs a Belgian musician, saw a reflection of the evolution of his compositions in the work of the Argentine Marta Graciela and vice versa. This project is not only original by the way in which it was created but also by the use of different mediums to get to the final result. For instance, Marta’s work comes out of original hand made drawings she manipulated with the help of her computer for about ten years.
Bruselas Belgicá en Buenos Aires will please to everybody as it does not requires specific knowledge of one culture or the other. The variety of the work and its alliance with the Belgian humour makes the exhibition much more accessible if you are not familiar with surrealism or modern art. The Exhibition will definitely give you an enjoyable time and help you to understand surrealism. You might even see Patagonia differently.
Bruselas Belgicá en Buenos Aires, Centro Cultural Borges, Viamonte y San Martín. From 29th October to 18th November 2009. Opened Mondays to Saturdays from 10am to 9pm. Sundays 12pm to 9pm