A terrified woman is wading through her flooded, middle-class living room as fish jump at her from all sides. A train with a turtle head is charging at a well-dressed dame standing at the beach, holding up her hands in protection. If Hitchcock and Buñuel had ever collaborated to create surreal black and white photomontages, the result might have looked very similar. Yet, Grete Stern‘s collages from the ‘Sueños’ (Dreams) collection, on show at MALBA at the moment, do not merely aim at depicting the horror of unknown or unrationalised dreams. In fact, originally, they had a clear, rational, even scientific, aim.

From 1948-1951, German photographer and Bauhaus scholar Grete Stern, who moved to Buenos Aires in 1943, was commissioned to create photo-montages for a romance magazine called Idilio. On the basis of descriptions sent in by its female readership she visualised 143 dreams for the series “Psychoanalysis Will Help You“, working in close collaboration with the sociologist and psychoanalyst Gani Germani, who directly advised her on how to depict certain dreams in a Freudian way. Stern had less than a week for each collage, drawing on her archive of landscape photography and using relatives and friends as models. Germani would then refer directly to the collage when analysing the dreams in the magazine.

Through combining photographs of real, but both spatially and empirically distinct, objects in a unified, seamless manner, the photo-montages appear to be a suitable medium to represent dreams and their propensity to throw together seemingly unrelated emotions and impressions and somehow present them as a coherent whole. Yet Stern‘s series of visual interpretations of dreams raises questions: firstly, whether photo-montages are an effective medium to do so, and secondly, whether representing dreams was actually her intention in the first place.

The majority of the surviving 46 black and white “dreams“ on display at the Malba are nightmares telling the story of unhappy, middle-class women facing several domestic and social threats. There is the threat of maternity, for instance in Dream 83 (sarcastically called “Surprise“), where a woman covers her face in horror in a dead-end alley as a toddler is tumbling towards her, seemingly asking for her care.

Stern often presents family it as a deathly, alienating force completely inverting its traditional role. Men invariably appear menacing, be it as a direct physical threat in form of a monstrous macho with a tortoise head or as a commodifying force, transforming the female into a usable object, as in ‘Dream 61′ where the woman is the base of a lamp which is about to be switched on by a man. And then there are the obvious, and metaphorically heavy-handed, collages where the female protagonist is trapped in a literal cage, in a corked glass vessel, or beneath a net thrown at her by her husband.

Stern, however, not only confronts us with a clear feminist critique of the oppressive forces faced by the women of her time (which stood in contrast to the submissive women normally portrayed and targeted by Idilio), but also points to women‘s complicity in this subduing act. The elegant subjects of her work either do not attempt to break out of their prison, or, when doing so, give up and come back begging to be let back into the false security of the domestic.

So, next to this condemnation of the submissive female position, where is the Freudian analysis in Stern‘s monochrome puzzles? Where is the sexually transgressive, the penis envy, the oedipus complex? While there is undoubtedly much visual material begging for psychoanalytic interpretation, such as the implicit hysteria of the women or various phallic objects, clear Freudian references and analysis remain obscure in the ‘Dreams’ series.

It seems that while visualising, rather than analysing, the reader‘s dreams, Stern asserted her own creativity and opinion on the original psychoanalytical project. The fact that she, in later exhibitions, used her own titles instead of the ones that Germani gave her for the Idilio editions further demonstrates that she began to follow her own agenda. And then there are also the works that clearly fall out of both the feminist and Freudian pattern, such as a subtly composed montage in which, for a change, a smiling dame stands on a miniature earth floating above a vast extraterrestrial landscape.

This suspect psychoanalytical legitimacy does not limit the artistic merit of Stern‘s work and opens it up to the ambiguity inherent in conceptually independent bodies of art. The photomontages on display at the MALBA play with realistic perspectives and create an atmosphere which feels natural and surreal at the same time. Apart from the, often all-too obvious, social critique of her work, Grete Stern granted dreams a degree of irrationality, skilfully creating an aesthetic in the interstice between their randomness and their meaning.

The exhibition “Sueños“ runs until 1st July at MALBA.

Newly opened exhibit “Origen” (Origin) at Edificio Cassará examines the concept of beginnings: of eras, of projects, of art, and of reality itself.

The exhibit features the work of artists Alejandro Bovo Theiler, Emilia Demichelis, Juan Lado, María Paula Caradonti, Marisa Dominguez, Nora Croatto, and Santiago Franciulli, using a variety of media, from oil on canvas to dolls made of cloth and clay.

“Artwork is the medium that the artist has to narrate his or her own reality and transform the reality of everyone,” the exhibit’s description reads. “The genesis of the real and fantastic entities that transform the work into everything the artist imagines.”

It is fitting, then, that a show with such an emphasis in beginnings would take place at a venue that has evolved exceptionally since its birth.

Situated in the neighbourhood of Microcentro, the building that is now Edificio Cassará has housed everything from a hotel to a pharmacy in its unusual 100-year history. It was in use from 1902 to 2000, when it was abandoned due to excessive deterioration. The building was then acquired by the Cassará foundation, which began the renovation process. Surrounded by other early 20th century buildings, it now unexpectedly harbours a pristine, modern art gallery within.

“It was destroyed. The facade urgently needed to be operated on, there were detached balconies, missing mouldings and huge cracks in the foundation,” Ana María Carrio, the architect who renovated the building back in 2003 told La Nación. “We acquired the building in 2003, and as an architect I recognised its huge value instantly. It was a fine building, with a solid structure and 60-centimeter-thick walls.”

Now successfully renovated, the building features a unique combination of classic and trendy features, with the original painted frescos intermixed with new wall details, and modern tables accentuated with pieces of mouldings that had fallen off the front of the building.

Museum guide Claudia Sanz Bayeto said “the building really has undergone a rebirth” in the last five years. She added that as the full-time guide for the small gallery, she is able to give the visitors an intimate tour of the space, explaining each artist’s work.

“Origen” consists of four floors, including the terrace on the fourth floor, which features the work of mixed media artist Emilia Demichelis, who hand sews a variety of textile-based works.

“Everyone has ways of contributing to the world,” Demichelis said in a short film presented along with her work. “My mission is to make the world more beautiful.”

Her large textile works hang from a ceiling on the fourth floor, which opens onto a beautiful terrace, partially constructed of a glass floor. She also has boxes filled with little hand-sewn landscape scenes, where viewers can look through a small hole into Demichelis’ constructed mini-world. Also on this floor are the drawings, paintings, and miniature statues of artist Santiago Franciulli.

One floor below, artist Marisa Dominguez addresses the idea of many kinds of origins through her displays. One series, called “Amor Woodoo” (Voodoo Love) shows the origins of love and relationships.

“She makes small holes in pieces of paper that when put together, make a picture,” Sanz Bayeto explains. “She wants to show love is constructed of small, daily acts that make the bigger picture in the end.”

This is not the only work by Dominguez on display: she also has a series called “New York, part of the whole” and a large work called “La Falta,” (absence).

On the second floor, artist Alejandro Bovo Theiler features some extremely unique works, combining ceramic work with hand sewing to create his own dolls. They are displayed throughout the room, creating the feeling that visitors have stepped into another world.

With these artists and several more, the exhibit has a countless variety of works for a relatively small gallery. This combined with the excellent location and beautiful renovated building makes this gallery a must-see.

The exhibit is located on Av de Mayo 1190, and is open on Fridays and Saturdays, from 4 pm to 8 pm. It will remain open until the end of July. For more information, check out their website.

A wobbly clay animation shows an artist in the creative process. Piling up what resemble wooden sticks – a straightforward reference to an artist using his tools for creation – the artwork enlarges. But as more are added, the work starts growing of its own accord and completely overwhelms the artist, eventually pushing him out of the screen.

‘Estudio’ (2006) captures some essential aspects of Argentine artist Axel Straschnoy’s artisthood: an interest in modes of production, reception, and the use of technology. The making of the clay animation was supposed to take place in a museum space, where a lifted platform would form the surface for the animation. A camera built into the ceiling would flash and take a picture every ten seconds, while two animators would hurry to lay the oversized clay in the right position for the next shot. The flash would blind the audience, whose view was already restricted by the high level of the platform.

By turning the museum space into a live studio, the process of creation and the presence of an audience would become part of the work. This experimental approach to the production of art is a recurrent theme in the work of Straschnoy, all of which evolves from a ‘practical philosophy’ that he defines as: build it, try it and see what happens.

Unrealised Projects

Unfortunately the project Estudio was never realised. It was supposed to take place in a temporary space of the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires (MAMBA). In the end, the museum was not available, and Estudio solely exists as a short film, as a draft, on Straschnoy’s website, in which the project is explained and visualised. Estudio was not an exception: Straschnoy describes his artistic period in Buenos Aires as “a period of unrealised projects”.

In Buenos Aires – where he was born and raised – Straschnoy developed his artistic practice. He was educated as an artist in a studio by, amongst others, Mónica Girón, who is currently teaching the Artists Program at Torcuato di Tella University. This traditional and romantic sounding concept is quite common in Argentina, as the art academies are often less suitable to be trained as an artist; they are more focused on educating art teachers. Furthermore Straschnoy studied Art History at the University of Buenos Aires, which contributes to his broad understanding of the theoretical as well as practical functioning of art.

After living and working as an artist in Buenos Aires for several years, Straschnoy says he got stuck. “I felt I knew the art scene and everybody in it and was not able to advance. Showing my art seemed practically impossible and the Argentine artistic environment didn’t fit me,” he says.

Straschnoy decided to expand his horizons and trade Buenos Aires for Helsinki. But before leaving, he bid Buenos Aires farewell in a literal and symbolic manner. Invited to exhibit in Galería Dabbah Torrejón, he made a show with his unrealised projects: Los Proyectos Medley Taller Boceto (2006). Straschnoy explains, “I collected all the scraps and papers from my studio; all my unfinished and unrealised projects, and exhibited those in the gallery space.” This resulted in a chaotic range of drafts, papers, notes, sculptures, etc. as remainders of ‘what could have been’. The themes of experimenting and failing lay at the core of this exhibition. By exposing this he was able to metaphorically shake off an unsatisfying period and start a new chapter of his artistic life in Finland.

Cameras and Robots

Helsinki meant a change for Straschnoy in the most positive sense. He found Finland to be a fertile environment for the production and the presentation of (his) art. Since his arrival, Straschnoy has staged many exhibits in a variety of places, though he continued to show his work in Argentina, the country that still strongly influences his work. Six years after he left, Straschnoy says that Buenos Aires remains inside of him.

The main elements present in Estudio still form part of his work: the interest in the production, perception and technology of a work of art. For Camera (2007) he turned an entire gallery space in Finland into a camera, with one of the windows as its lens, focused on the street. Although the second part of the work was the projection of the resulting film, it was not about what was filmed; the subject of a street with pedestrians walking by was random. Rather, the work focused on the process of the production and of the audience intervention with the work of art. By entering the gallery the visitor became part of the ‘technology’ of the camera. And just like in Estudio, the spectator is not able to comprehend and see the entire artwork, because it is ‘happening’ as they are present.

In one very remarkable project, Straschnoy’s interest in technology and spectatorship reaches a climax. The New Artist (2008-) is an ongoing project on which Straschnoy works with fellow artists and scientists from the Robotic Institute in Pittsburgh. The objective of this project is to create purely robotic art – “What happens if robots create art for robots? What happens when the human is completely left out?” These questions resulted in a witty presentation of two robotic machines facing each other, with one performing and the other watching. With this happening behind semi-closed curtains, the human as a spectator and consumer of art is made unnecessary. Robots creating art for one another, makes us contemplate on the (human) role of the production and consumption of art.

The end product in Straschnoy’s work is often not the principal focus. The process of production and reception are an integral part of the work, leaving room for experimenting, succeeding and failing. This results in flexible artworks, which might change form and meaning even during and after the exhibition. The idea of ‘unfinished’ remains a recurrent theme in Straschnoy’s work, but it is now deliberate and no longer means ‘not shown’ or ‘failed’.

Straschnoy as his Clay Artist

As The New Artist illustrates, Straschnoy is always searching for something new to discover: “If there is not something new in it, why would you work with it?,” he says. For his latest project he dedicated himself completely to the medium of the planetarium. As a place where mainly computer generated and didactic films are shown, Straschnoy went where few have gone before and created an art house film – a film that follows the conventions of (experimental) cinema – for the dome-shaped screen.

The Planetarium Project consists of photos and the film Kilpisjärvellä. The film narrates the story of two explorers, one of which is Straschnoy, embarking on a journey to one of the most northern parts of the world, in his adopted home Finland. Here Straschnoy filmed the aurora borealis, the magical northern lights. The 180° view a planetarium offers the best possible way to project these northern skies, and the film is a documentation of the northern lights as well as the process of filming it. We see the explorers travelling through the rough landscape, warming their hands by the fire, setting the camera in the right position, etc. Once again, Straschnoy includes the audience in the entire process, making them part of the journey as well as the destination.

By researching different modes of production and technology, Straschnoy mixes art and science. But he always approaches his subject as an artist. He uses technology on an intuitive and emotional level, much more than having a formal or rational take on it. He uses his tools to find out what might happen, not to establish a specific targeted end result.

In many ways, he is like the artist in Estudio who is engulfed by his artwork. Could this animation be a self-portrait of the artist and of the way he works? Just like the clay artist, Straschnoy welcomes the unexpected, and is not afraid of a sudden turn of events during an artistic process. The way he approaches his subjects and media leaves room for the unexpected, for a sudden intervention and for multiple outcomes and interpretations. And this lies at the heart of his practical philosophy: build it, try it and see what happens.

Axel Straschnoy’s film Kilpisjärvellä will be shown at the planetarium in Buenos Aires as part of the 2013 BAFICI Film Festival. For dates and times, click here.

IdeaMe is an online platform, which helps creators, be they inventors, artists, or designers, among others, to finance their projects through crowd funding. Each week, the Indy features and promotes one project every week, with the aim of helping the creators finance and achieve their dreams. This week: GPS Cultural.

The creators of GPS Cultural believe that art projects have the potential to change the world — if they can only get off the ground.

“If we believe in the transformational power of cultural vocations, we need more and better projects, and more and better organisations,” the promotional video explains.

Founders Bruno Maccari, Graciana Maro, and Pablo Montiel say the best way to get projects started is to help lovers of art help each other. Working towards this goal is their new interactive GPS system, the first of its kind, which connects artists to potential funds for their projects.

Each potential financial source in Latin America will be geo-referenced and marked with a tab containing clear information about the organisation, company or institution. The system will contain an advanced search engine through which users can apply various filters, like continent, country, city, types of organisations, etc. It will also allow users to add funding sources that are not on the map or update data records already included.

“To achieve (projects), we need to work together online, sharing the available information, and finding out who can help us,” the video continues. “We need to learn who to work with so we can all achieve goals together that we could not achieve on our own.”

It is fitting, then, that an application aimed at crowd sourcing would be advertised on IdeaMe, which has been helping people do just that since its founding in 2011. GPS Cultural is filed under IdeaMe’s “anything helps” category, meaning that even if they don’t reach their goal they will still get to keep the funds they do obtain.

Those funds will be used to cover operating costs, pertaining mostly to its website and the interactive map. They say with funds to keep them afloat, they will provide contents of the map, research, and make the program accessible to the cultural sector of Latin America.

“We want to make Latin-American art and culture more accessible and easy to share through an interactive tool,” the group concludes.

GPS Cultural is a non-profit initiative with the goal of allowing developers, managers, and entrepreneurs identify, select and share the main sources of funding for regional culture. So far it has over 3,000 potential funding sources filed.

“This is a unique opportunity for all members of the cultural community to actively participate in the co-creation of networks of resources, sharing information and funding sources for our endeavors,” GPS Cultural’s website states.

Helping this project is really a ripple effect: If you support it now, it can support hundreds, or even thousands of Latin American artists in the future. For more information, check out their page.

Fundacíon PROA’s stark, cool interior is a welcome contrast to the burning, tourist packed streets of La Boca. The gallery is showcasing Harun Farocki’s five video installations until 31st March, each of which examines a different subject from ‘a workplace without humans’ to ‘representation of perspective’. The show is Farocki’s first in Argentina.

The three rooms of PROA’s ground floor have been converted into cinemas with four of the films being projected onto white walls. ‘Workers Leaving the Factory in Eleven Decades’ (2006), however, is broadcast on 11 separate televisions, each beaming soundless images of clocking in and out throughout the ages. Rioting workforces confronting armed policemen also features on a number of the monitors, interspersed with Charlie Chaplin sketches.

Imagery of war plays a starring role in two of the films and upon walking into Room One you are confronted with various infra-red, on board views of missiles homing in on tanks, bridges and buildings. A running commentary discusses the role of humans in war and suggests that eventually we will be phased out of combat altogether, only controlling vehicles and drones from behind cameras and joysticks. The ever increasing role of machines in industrial production is used as an example with the commentator stating, “There must be a connection between production and war.”

The videos are haunting there’s no question, and a sinister undercurrent flows through the reels of film as they flicker in the dull light. Watching an American ex-soldier recount witnessing his friend bleed to death in Iraq, while engaging in a combat simulator, as shown in Room Three, stirs controversy, especially when the man cries, “I don’t want to do this anymore!” According to Farocki, the exhibition is “focussed on uncovering the ideological processes involved in the production and reception of images.”

While this concept may be regarded as unclear, and much of what is on show certainly seems clouded in the director’s own interpretation, it provokes a reaction. You only have to glance at the other people viewing the films to realise that they are engrossed in the content, sitting on the white benches in the front of the screens, eyes glazed over and transfixed by the strange, unconventional bursts of cinema.

The “reception of images” is perhaps displayed in its clearest form in ‘Parallel’ (2012). The use of trees, running water and clouds in computer games, and how they have evolved within animation over the past three decades, is shown in a four minute feature. A glum, monotone narrator talks about how the representation of such images has changed and how this effects out perception of reality. At least two minutes of the film is spent silently watching a computer programmer designing a virtual cloud from scratch, and although this may not be the most exciting viewing, it is oddly engaging.

Farocki reels the audience in by touching on conceptual issues backed up by real life footage, supporting these ideas with bold scenes and short, sharp statements of dialogue. For instance, in ‘Eye/Machine II’ (2002), the German director flicks from film of a heat-seeking missile zipping through the sky to the computer animated scenes of the same missile, all the while explaining how technology guides the “deadly weapon” without a human anywhere to be. Much of the footage is in black and white giving the impression that the filmmaker predicted these ideas in a past age.

While some of the imagery may be hard to decipher, in Farocki’s work transpires a strange feeling of doom, like a precursor to the apocalypse. It’s unsettling but well worth a look.

Fundación PROA Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1929, La Boca. Open 11am to 7pm, Tuesday to Sunday; Entrance: $15.

La Boca at once both attracts and repels. On one hand it is celebrated as one of Buenos Aires’ least changed barrios, stubbornly retaining its wayward charm; on the other it is maligned for its crime, pollution, and violence. Porteños will roll their eyes at camera-toting tourists hailing cabs for El Caminito, the neighbourhood’s iconic, kitschy “must-see” attraction, yet in their next breath will betray a nostalgic affection for the working-class enclave where their grandparents or great-grandparents very likely first set foot on Argentine soil.

Boca’s stereotypes are so overdone and marketed in the tourism industry that you might feel like you know the neighbourhood without ever even venturing there – and for those who do make the trek, it’s usually just that quick jaunt to El Caminito before crossing the barrio off the to-do list entirely. It’s difficult separating the genuine from the fabricated, and therefore the true spirit of the neighbourhood often remains hidden.

The Museo Benito Quinquela Martín, founded by and named after the barrio’s most famous artist, is a good place to find that spirit. Opened in 1938 on land donated to the city by Quinquela Martín, the property also houses a primary school and theatre, all overlooking the waters of the Río Riachuelo and just a stone’s throw away from the Caminito.

“Everything I’ve done and achieved, I owe it to my neighbourhood,” reads a Quinquela Martín quote, hanging in the entrance to the museum. “It gave me the unstoppable drive that served as my inspiration.”

The museum is a love letter from the artist to the barrio he grew up in, and an effort on his part to provide a space for burgeoning artists from an Argentina that, at the peak of immigration, was struggling to make sense of its cultural identity.

Housed on the second and third floors of the building, the museum’s modest collection is more representative of Boca’s gritty back alleys and shipyards than the Caminito of the guidebooks. Though the walls are painted the same bright primary colours as the neighbourhood’s famous iron-sided tenements, the artworks themselves are decidedly more subdued, suggesting there lies a profound melancholy beneath the cheerful exterior.

Vicente Vento’s ‘Fin de Jornada’ (‘End of the day’) presents a hazy, diluted contrast to the lively reds, blues and yellows we are accustomed to; hunched workers slink home, hands in pockets, as smokestacks puff silently into the sky. These same elements are to be found in many of the paintings on display – the ever-present Río Riachuelo, the looming smokestacks, anonymous workers dwarfed by the city that grows unstoppably around them.

A section of the second floor devoted to portraits gives us a closer look at these previously faceless workers and other residents of the barrio from the turn of the century to about the ‘50s. Lino Spilimbergo’s ‘Momento Feliz’ (‘Joyful Moment’) portrays an old man sitting down to a bowl of soup, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of wine. Portraits of artists’ mothers line the walls – all Italian, all wizened in black mourning shawls. The ragged-clothed youth in Antonio Berni’s 1951 ‘El niño y su moneda’ (‘The boy and his coin’) bears a striking resemblance, unfortunately, to so many children on the city’s streets today, a reminder that over the course of the century, some things haven’t changed.

The commentary (in Spanish) also points out the political undertones of many of the works, reminding us that it was La Boca, after all, which elected the city’s first socialist congressman in 1935. While these interpretations are interesting and no doubt shed light on the context in which the art was made, they are not necessary in appreciating the deeper, non-political anguish in such pieces as Eduardo Sivori’s ‘El muerte del marino’ (‘Death of the sailor’).

The second floor also houses a fascinating collection of ships’ figureheads, in keeping with the nautical theme that permeates so much of the artwork. The ornately carved maidens and bearded deities come from ships with names like La Abundancia, El Conquistador, and La Fama Italiana, which once plied the waters visible from the museum’s windows. The Sala Eduardo Sivori plays host to rotating exhibits of Argentine artists, and Boca-based Guillermo Mac Loughlin’s ‘Itinerario’ will be on display until 6th March.

The museum’s third floor is where Quinquela Martín made his home and studio until his death in 1977 and the living space is left largely intact. The walls of the spacious, airy apartment hold portraits of Quinquela Martín done in homage by other famous Latin American artists, and serve as a gallery of his impressive, larger than life oil paintings. Here again we see the ubiquitous smokestacks on the far shores of Avellaneda, fiery sunsets and longshoremen bowed beneath the weight of cargo. In ‘Después de la explosión’ (‘After the explosion’), tiny figures repair the crippled hull of a massive ship which appears like a snarling, water-borne monster, just moments away from devouring them.

A rooftop terrace provides a view of the river and the Boca skyline, from which Quinquela Martín often gazed for inspiration. “From the balconies of my studio, I sometimes feel a strange sensation like an inner voice telling me I could not have been born anywhere but here.”

Museo Benito Quinquela Martín
Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1835 (1169), La Boca.
Tuesday – Friday 10am-6pm, weekends and holidays 11am-6pm.
Summer hours (January and February): Tuesday – Sunday 11am-5.30pm
Admission: Free, $10 contribution recommended.
Free concerts offered every Saturday at 3pm.
Accessible by bus lines 64, 53, 20, 152, and 29

In the foothills of the Andes some 2000km north west of Buenos Aires, the city of Salta, with it’s colonial architecture and sublime natural surroundings, is sometimes described as ‘sophisticated’. This does not refer to the local infrastructure (potholed roads, slow internet, and just one functioning railway), its mainly agricultural economy, and not even its considerable range of adventure and wine tourism options.

Salta’s sophisticated side is best reflected in its vibrant arts scene, which provides a fascinating insight into the history and culture of Argentina’s north west. From ancient textiles to colonial religious iconography, 19th century landscapes, the Wichi naïve movement, and video installations and photomontages from around the country, Salta offers a vast spectrum of delights for art lovers, both historical and contemporary.

If you arrive in Salta by plane, your first experience of salteño art will be at the airport, where you might spot the exhibition of local paintings, photographs or sculptures to the side of the escalators that ascend to departures. And while you might have heard of Salta referred to as the ‘cradle of Argentine folklore’, you’d be forgiven for not knowing that Salta is also home to a world-class symphony orchestra, the result of a successful strategy several years ago of recruiting Eastern Europeans, virtuoso trained in the communist era, to play alongside and mentor local musicians.

Traditional and Fine Art

Salta’s Museo de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Museum) moved to its current premises in 2008, and now boasts over 1000m2 of exhibition space arranged over two floors. There are different areas dedicated to pre-Columbian art, religious iconography of the 17th and 18th centuries, and 19th and 20th century art. About two thirds of the gallery is devoted to the permanent collection, with the remainder housing temporary installations, including art on loan from galleries in Buenos Aires. The majority of the permanent collection is by local artists, although there are also a few 19th century European works, and paintings from the Cusco and Potosi movements of the 18th century.

Notable historical works include the ‘View of the city of Salta from the top of Cerro San Bernardo’, a mid-nineteenth century oil landscape by Italian artist Carlo Penutti, fascinating also because you can ascend the San Bernardo hill by cable car today to experience the same view, and a contemporary painting of local Independence War hero General Guemes.

The temporary collections are often modern art, and feature installations and paintings by some of Argentina’s most celebrated contemporary artists. Currently on display, alongside paintings on loan from the Buenos Aires Museum of Contemporary Art, is a selection of textiles by local Salteño artist Carlos Garcia Bes, who creates modern images in the traditional indigenous local medium of tapestry.

Another collection of early 19th century portraits is on display in the Museo Historico de Norte (Northern History Museum), in the Plaza 9 de Julio, depicting characters from the prominent local families of the time of Argentine independence, alongside various military and domestic objects from the same era. Most of these families remain influential in Salta today.

Indigenous Art

Thanks to it’s majority indigenous population, Salta is also home to the most developed and thriving indigenous art scene in the country.

Pajcha, the Museo de Arte Etnico Americano (Museum of Ethnic American Art), one of Salta’s hidden treasures, houses the private collection of a local anthropologist. The collection is arranged to showcase the evolution of the three main mediums of indigenous art (textiles, sculpture, and painting), with historical artefacts and works on display alongside contemporary ones. Thus 1500 year old textiles are situated next to modern ones, illustrating how local traditions have survived the dramatic upheavals of the intervening centuries intact.

None of the pre-Columbian American cultures invented writing, and neither did they paint besides decorating objects such as pottery, and as such religious iconography developed under the instruction of the Dominican and Jesuit priests that followed the conquistadors to the New World is the earliest example of indigenous paintings.

In Pajcha there are 18th century religious paintings from the north of the province, inspired by the Potosi and Lake Titicaca schools, that show religious scenes whose familiar Biblical characters have native American faces. There is also a painting from the famous Cuzco School, depicting a conquistador-angel, and photos of notable sculptures from the churches of the Humahuaca Valley in Juyjuy province to the north of Salta, historically on the trade route to Peru, again with protagonists with indigenous faces.

It was in the 20th century that local indigenous people began to paint for its own sake, depicting their environment and daily life. The Wichi tribe from the Chaco jungle region, a few hours drive to the east of the city, with the encouragement and support of the SIWOK foundation and the Anglican Diocese of Northern Argentina, have in particular thrived artistically, and have developed a unique style, vivid, colourful and naïve, depicting life in the jungle. Alec Deane, an Anglo-Argentine resident of Salta, founded the SIWOK Foundation in the late 1970s to help the Wichi people adapt to the modernity that was encroaching on their traditional way of life. He initially established a wood carving workshop to nurture one of their traditional art forms so as to provide them with an income, and from these humble beginnings, as Alec told their story and distributed their work internationally, the Wichi painting movement grew. The most famous artists from the movement are brother and sister Litania and Reinaldo Prado, and some of their work in on display in Pajcha.

The Museo de Arqueología de Alta Montaña (Museum of High Mountain Archaeology) in the Plaza 9 de Julio contains the mummified remains of several children discovered in 1999 that were left on a nearby mountain peak as an offering by the Incas, and were preserved by the cold and lack of oxygen at the high altitude. With them were left various precious objects, such as textiles, sculptures and jewellery, which are also all perfectly preserved. These provide a fascinating glimpse of not only 15th century Incan art and culture, but also of the scale and interconnectedness of pre-Hispanic South America. The artefacts include gold figurines from Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, and coral jewellery from the northern coast of Peru.

Modern Art

For modern art lovers, besides the collections in the Museo de Bellas Artes, the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (Contemporary Art Museum), on a corner of the Plaza 9 de Julio, houses several temporary exhibitions. The standard is high, and the work on display is a mix of that by local artists and others from around the country. There are currently installations by Soledad Videla, a painter from Córdoba, and Julieta Anaut, who creates large photo-montages with mythical themes, alongside a study of Wichi life, past and present, by a collaboration of both Wichi and European-descended photographers and artists, including photos, paintings, and videos.

Salta’s Art Museums

Museo de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Museum) Av.Belgrano 992, 0387 422 1745, http://www.culturasalta.gov.ar/content/view/4481/446/

Pajcha, Museo de Arte Etnico Americano (Museum of Ethnic American Art) 20 de Febrero 831, 0387 422 9417, http://www.museopajchasalta.com.ar/

Museo historico del norte (Northern History Museum) Caseros 541, 0387 421 5340, http://www.museonor.gov.ar/

Museo de Arqueología de Alta Montaña (Museum of High Mountain Archaeology) Mitre 77, 0387 4370591, http://www.maam.gob.ar/

Museo de arte contemporaneo (Contemporary Art Museum) Zuviria 90, 0387 437 3036, http://www.macsaltamuseo.org/

Hugo Lesser is based in Salta in north west Argentina. He is the founder of Estados (www.estados.co.uk), which offers beautiful handmade Argentine leather goods in the UK.

To start something big and great, you don’t always have to write a long business plan and carefully study the market. The best ideas are often around us, waiting desperately to be picked up and utilised.

Friends Ana Luz and Julieta went backpacking for one year around Latin America in 2010, like thousands of other young people. But instead of taking pictures and hanging out at the beach, these two girls wanted to find a project that would connect all their interests and passions at once. It was an easy task, and very soon, Julieta and Ana Luz found what they were looking for. Garbage was all around them, wherever they travelled.

“We were spending an afternoon on a beautiful beach in Venezuela. At one point I gathered a few plastic bags and started cutting them. In about five minutes I got a lot of material for sewing,” Ana Luz recalls the travel experience that changed her life. Later, in Ecuador, both friends began collecting all the items they would normally throw away. And surprisingly, that small investment was enough to source the first materials for their new business back in Argentina.

The inspiring trip gave a name to their new, promising project. Feriado, Amor al Reciclado is now a successful and dynamic start-up with three main objectives: 1 – forming a new attitude towards garbage and its aesthetic role in production; 2 – generating awareness of new ecological culture, that includes an active and responsible attitude; 3 – creating a new tool to recycle and transform garbage into art.

Both innovative entrepreneurs actively work on expanding their business, learning new techniques, and producing great pieces of art. Among them are accessories for women, creative design materials, decorations, and others.

During their trip, Julieta and Ana Luz managed to learn from other professionals in their area and learn best practices. Once they got their hands-on experience, they found out the importance of sharing their know-how and opened courses in recycling and reproducing materials.

“Before we teach people to do things, we want to make sure they are worth the effort,” says Ana Luz after hosting a workshop at the recent FestEco event in Buenos Aires. Feriado, Amor al Reciclado is present at all important festivals and exhibitions related to ecology and environment.

Every course opens with a theoretical introduction, where the girls share facts about consumption and recycling, and educate on some basic methods to re-use the garbage. “We relate garbage with something dirty and useless,” Ana Luz starts her speech at a special workshop on plastic bags. She opens a huge trunk with an infinite number of bags of all sizes and brands. “We see cartoneros in the streets and think, ‘they are doing the worst job ever’. But we forget that garbage is a great business too.” Ana Luz distributes the tiny plastic bags and scissors to all participants. In only two or three minutes everybody has a long string that used to be a plastic bag. “Imagine, the average lifecycle of a supermarket bag is 20 minutes. This is the time you spend between buying your products and getting home. It doesn’t make any sense!”

Ana Luz is a proponent of responsible consumption and believes all products are 100% recyclable. The challenge is how to recycle them smartly and give them a second life. “The idea of our courses is not to make people consume less. This question is pretty complex and advertising has a great influence on it. What we want to achieve is to manage resources in a better way and to see an opportunity where others see only garbage.”

Julieta and Ana Luz are only 24, however, their energy and passion for the project ensures a great impact on the society they are part of. Their desire is to expand all over Latin America and educate more and more people, as a payback to their trip over two years ago. So far they are on a very good track, and they seem to make magic out of something so trivial and unwanted –garbage.

For more information about the project and workshops, please visit their webpage www.feriadoamoralreciclado.com

Those who have experienced the crazy offers of contemporary arts and mix of styles in the city of Buenos Aires, might be surprised with the ‘traditional’ spirit of the Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo (MNAD), which takes its visitors back to 19th century Europe.

Strategically well located at the cross section of Av Libertador and Billinghurst, the museum stands out for its impressive architecture and reminds me of a palace at first glance.

Understanding the concept and objectives of MNAD requires learning its history and that of its founders, the families Errázuriz and Alvear. Josefina de Alvear and Matías Errázuriz Ortúzar married in Buenos Aires and spent 11 years in France serving as diplomats. Those years significantly influenced the family, as they gathered a great collection of art in Europe and Asia.

When the family returned to Argentina, Josefina initiated a project to build a residence and invited a French architect René Sergent to help. After a series of challenges related to the First World War, the residence was successfully inaugurated, and shortly after became a centre for the city’s elite. With the death of Josefina in 1935, her husband and children offered the entire residence to the state, insisting on converting it into a museum. The government accepted the offer and under the Law 12351 it bought the residence with all its collections, and named it Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo on 18th December 1937.

The building of MNAD consists of three floors, each one with a different function. The ground and principal floor possesses a big space centred on the ball room that is part luxurious baroque epoch and part elegant rococo. The wooden curves placed as great design features remind of the typical castles of Loire. Mirrors and a couple of massive art sculpture amplify the dance floor used by the sociable porteños at the beginning of 20th century.

The first floor somehow hides the social and attractive part of the museum from the former private apartments of Errázuriz-Alvear family members. Every person in the family owned a personal living space, with a bedroom, dressing room, bathroom and toilette at his or her disposal. Grand furniture and intense deep colours in every room draw comparisons with Versailles, where the general darkness of the space is compensated by the quantity of art objects and little accessories spread all around.

The nearby Zubov Room, called after the Countess Rosario S. de Zubov, which comes with an impressive collection of European portraits, could easily belong either to the museum of Czartoryski in Poland, or to the Russian Hermitage or to Museo del Prado in Madrid.

The gallery of tapestries decorates three walls that surround the ball room from above. French and Flemish works of 16-19th centuries take entire walls and confuse with the complexity of their styles and actual images.

Finally, the underground floor is given to contemporary art exhibitions that take place frequently in MNAD. The most recent one is the called ‘Fantasies and reality in MNAD’ by Argentine illustrator Dolores Avendaño, whose fame is directly connected with her work on the Spanish edition of ‘Harry Potter’ by J.K. Rowling. After concentrating on huge sculptures and sophisticated visual pieces upstairs it feels refreshing to see childish and innocent works. Avendaño plays with the elegancy and solemnity of the museum and places her heroes next to the art objects, making them protagonists of those important events and gatherings of the 19-20th centuries.

“We’ve got a lot of important tasks to complete, and one of them was to reconstruct the façade above the garden,” says Alberto Bellucci, the director of MNAD for the last 22 years. He talks about the museum, as if it were his house. “This complex project has taken several years and was completed in phases until its successful inauguration in November. As a national museum we’ve got a lot of support from both national and city government, however, it’s never enough for all the projects we run. This is why we have a network of corporate and individual contributors and also Asociación Amigos del Museo, an entity that has been supporting MNAD since 1964 in areas of consultancy, finances and others. Everybody can become a contributor and a friend of the museum.”

These friends include world famous artists, politicians, and sports stars who signed the visitors book in the last 25 years. To keep them coming, Bellucci says he wants to make MNAD feel more like a home than a musuem – it seem like he is on track.

MNAD is open from Tuesday to Sunday 2pm to 7pm. It will be closed from 24 December to 14 January 2013. Summer courses start on 9 January and 7 February and annual courses open their subscriptions on 14 January. Entrace: $10.

Besides its exhibitions, MNAD runs educational and cultural activities, inviting famous artists and participating in the city agenda. For more information visit the website: http://www.mnad.org/

The security guard sits absent-mindedly, bored, at the entrance to the exhibition, seemingly unphased by the strange combination of disco, piercing screams, and melancholy reggae emanating from the darkened rooms of the gallery space. Visitors move uncertainly into the exhibit, as if entering some seaside carnival funhouse, or a bad memory.

Small neon pink letters glow from the centre of a large black wall, reading, simply, “How It Feels”, the title of British artist Tracey Emin’s first exhibition in Latin America, hosted by the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires (MALBA) with the collaboration of the British Council and curated by Philip Larratt-Smith. The show is the only one to date devoted exclusively to her video works, which loop repeatedly in their small rooms like archival footage from Emin’s subconscious.

Emin, born in 1963, is a leading figure of the Young British Artists, a group that includes Damien Hirst and Chris Ofili, whose works are characterised by their diverse mediums (formaldehyde and elephant dung among them), their controversial effrontery towards public sensibility, and, in Emin’s case, an extreme willingness to allow the viewer a glimpse into private, at times uncomfortable, moments. Emin has long delved into her own life as inspiration for her art, taking the most personal of experiences and laying them bare for a sometimes offended, yet helplessly curious, audience.

One of her most famous works, an installation piece titled “My Bed”, consists of her own unmade bed complete with yellowed sheets, empty vodka bottles, packs of cigarettes, stained drawers, and a used condom. Another piece, “Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995”, featured a tent with various names sewn on, ranging from lovers, to family members, to her own aborted children. While critics accuse her of “conning” the public or exploiting her own private life, sympathetic viewers might find, in her work, a desire to connect at the most intimate level, even at the expense of privacy or propriety.

The five videos displayed in “How It Feels”, made between 1995 and 2000, are a bit more subtle yet no less personal than the rest of her body of work (which includes sculpture, painting, photography, fabric-work, literature, prints, and drawings). The first, upon entering the exhibit, “Love is a Strange Thing” (2000), is the most recent and least serious of the five. A humorous encounter with a drooling mastiff pokes fun at the promiscuity suggested by Emin’s earlier works.

“Homage to Edvard Munch and All My Dead Children” (1998) is decidedly darker. The two-minute video plays in the smallest, most cramped of the five rooms, and features the artist nude in the foetal position on a Norwegian dock. The peaceful lapping of waves is interrupted by prolonged, anguished screams. If “How It Feels” can be thought of as a cross-section of Emin’s memories or subconscious, then “Homage” is like an open psychological wound, the screams audible throughout the entire exhibit.

The centrepiece and namesake of the exhibit, “How It Feels” (1996) is the longest of the works on display and features Emin at her most candid. A lengthy and descriptive discussion with an unidentified interviewer on the abortion of her twins at age 18 touches on issues of religion, class, disease, guilt, parenthood, and artistic failure. The reasons for her controversial openness in art are made explicitly clear.

“Why I Never Became a Dancer” (1995), projected on a wall-sized screen at the rear of the exhibit, evokes the nostalgia of a home video with its grainy, washed out images of Emin’s childhood home of Margate. In a calm voice, she describes life in the small coastal town as well as her first sexual encounters with older men. Faded images of seagulls, the ocean, and boardwalk shops are depicted as Emin describes the anger, embarrassment, and disillusionment with small-town life that caused her to eventually flee. The conclusion is tinged with a self-justification that almost seems involuntary.

Finally, “Riding for a Fall” (1998) is the simplest yet most compelling of the videos. The title is taken from the reggae song that provides the soundtrack, in which the singer warns a love interest that her pride is bound to one day bring her low. Emin appears on horseback on a Margate beach, cowboy-hatted, her shirt unbuttoned to reveal a black bra. She looks defiantly, almost sadly at the camera, only occasionally smiling enigmatically beneath the cowboy hat. Her return to Margate as a successful artist is tainted by the underlying sense, suggested by the song’s melancholy lyrics, that hers is a sad story, and will continue to be despite artistic and commercial success.