The arteBA art fair in Buenos Aires, which opened yesterday amid economic upheaval, marks a week of major exhibitions in Argentina's capital. Here are some top contemporary art shows at museums and galleries around the city.
What you talking about it?, UV Studios, until 31 May: Functioning as both an artist collective, residence and gallery, UV Estudios specialises in new media and performance work that explores queer identity through lighthearted humour and incisive cultural critique, continuing a rich history of Buenos Aires’s alternative exhibition and gathering spaces. Its current group exhibition, What you talking about it? includes work by all of the gallery's current artists. Among them is Lolo y Lauti, whose solo booth at ArteBA has proven popular for its Me Huevo Loca performance in which around a dozen people dressed as French fries sleep under an egg-shaped duvet. Lolo y Lauti's work in What you talking about it? at UV Estudios
José Luis Landet: Ghostly Haunting, Walden Gallery, until 10 May: In a solo show at Walden Gallery, in the city's Almirante Brown neighbourhood, the Argentinian artist José Luis Landet's mixed media works confuse time, place and even materials. While his abstract paintings reveal spectral lines from marks made and erased or covered over, the occasional cement head pokes out of them. It is the monumental wall of disembodied fists, aligned in a grid and all held upright as if in a sign of power and resistance, that is the most haunting. José Luis Landet's work in his solo show Ghostly Haunting, Walden Gallery
Ana Prata: Sorte, Isla Flotante, until 17 May: The Brazilian artist Ana Prata's densely layered paintings vary from figurative to abstract, with tiny meticulous marks to chaotic gestures, but they all address the theme of destiny or luck, the rough translation of the Portuguese word "sorte". Schematic renderings of moons and black cats, paired with geometric shapes and bright fields of colour, represent the two poles between which belief is based: reason and superstition—or what some might just call intuition. Ana Prata's work in the exhibition Sorte at Isla Flotante
Proyecto Yungas, Museum of Latin American Art Buenos Aires (Malba), until 2 June: This marks the first group exhibition in Buenos Aires of the Proyecto Yungas, an experimental arts initiative named after the temperate forest region in Argentina's northern Andes region that is aimed at boosting the production and professionalisation of artists working outside of the capital city. Featuring works by six of the platform's recent grant awardees—all of whom are artists under 40 working in various provinces across the country—the exhibition spans painting, sculpture, installation, video and performance. Proyecto Yungas at the Museum of Latin American Art Buenos Aires (Malba)
Mercedes Azpilicueta: Bird Bodies, at the Museum of Modern Art Buenos Aires (Mamba), until 15 April: This marks the last weekend to see the video and mixed media installation produced especially for Mamba by the Argentinian artist Mercedes Azpilicueta. Filmed on the streets of Buenos Aires, the artist explores everyday breakdowns in oral communication that can make us feel hurt, uncomfortable or angry, our reactions to which ultimately bind us as a flock. Mercedes Azpilicueta: Bird Bodies, at the Museum of Modern Art Buenos Aires (Mamba)
Exhibitionsgallery
The best of Buenos Aires beyond arteBA
Five shows to see during the city's Semana del Arte
12 April 2019
acto de fe