1
February 2020
Our
first day on our cruise, which we boarded in Buenos Aires, is, indeed, a day in
Buenos Aires. (I find this quite
funny.). Having just spent five weeks in this vibrant city, we opted to enjoy
the ship.
So I’m
sitting in a lovely lounge, plugged into one of the few outlets around, with a
nice cup of tea and a view of the Rio Plata, the Plate River. I’ve heard that the Spanish named it that
because it is a calm river, and tends to look more silvery than blue – so they
named it for silver plate, or plata.
Anyway,
I have more photos of Buenos Aires, and a few more not so adventurous stories.
We spent
one afternoon looking for eye drops for Richard. One specific brand, which it turned out is
not easy to find. But he had searched
online, and thought he found one of the few pharmacies in the city that carried
this.
Of
course, as often happens with google searches, buildings are sold and
businesses move. So the address we were
looking for turned out to no longer be the pharmacy, and was instead what was a
rather nice café.
But,
serendipitously for me, there was a fabulous news kiosk right in front that was
covered in wonderful fileteado painting!!!
Really gorgeous!!!
So I
stood out there in the drizzly rain, taking photos of this beautiful newspaper
kiosk that was closed, which made it easier to see all of the images.
Now, let
me jump forward a tiny bit. There’s good
art, great art, mediocre art, and really bad art, in all art forms. Whether it’s in music, dance, theatre,
movies, literature, or visual art, sometimes the artist or performer is having
a bad day. Or sometimes the
artist/performer isn’t as skilled as someone else. Maybe they’re at the student level, or an
apprentice, or perhaps more intermediate.
For whatever reason, art can range from bad to masterpiece – and that
isn’t a subjective opinion, but really an objective look at all art forms.
Well, a
few blocks up from the wonderful fileteado kiosk I found a not great fileteado
kiosk. Maybe worse than not great – not
terrible, but definitely not good. The
artist may have been a student, or just starting out in painting
fileteado. As my tour guide Georgina
said, sometimes the owner doesn’t want to pay for a really good fileteadore, so
they basically get what they pay for – not good painting. In fact, pretty bad painting. I mean, yes, I’ve painted for a while – but
my first fileteado was light years better than the painting on this kiosk. And better than some of the signs I’ve seen.
So, when
we look at a bad example of fileteado, we can compare that to see how really
amazing really good fileteado can be.
Back to
the really wonderful kiosk. Both of the
ends had the same design, the curling acanthus leaves, a bandoneón (little
accordian used in tango music), three flowers, and at the top, a bow that
mimics the Argentinian flag. Very
obviously all about the culture of Buenos Aires, where tango as well as
fileteado were both born.
But see
those thin lines around the acanthus leaves, on both sides and inbetween the
two leaves? That’s the part that, to me,
looks like the path of tango dancers.
Maybe. Also maybe not, but to me,
I think that might be part of what people mean when they say that fileteado is
related to tango.
The
front of the kiosk, though, is really wonderful, and where all the action
is. (And notice that the graffiti is on
the metal top, above the painting? Yeah,
I’m thinking that the taggers respect good fileteado, and so they didn’t paint
over it.)
More
acanthus leaves creating frames, more flags, more curls and swirls and
curlicues that look like French horn vines.
Add in a few more flowers, a bird or two, and, oddly, a dragon. No one knows why dragons have become symbols
often used in fileteado, but they just are.
Perhaps they were the emblem of the original young painters from Italy,
depending on what town or city they came from – many Italian towns have
neighborhoods with different animal symbols as their emblem, left over from the
medieval days of heraldry and coats of arms.
Or maybe Asian immigrants painted fileteado, someone added a dragon, and
it caught on. At any rate, as fileteado
grew and became popular, dragons became a common part of the design.
The
central part is, of course, the tango dancers.
The two dancers are set on a yellow panel, which really draws attention
to this as the centerpiece of the composition.
Our tango dancers are framed by the Argentinian flag on the left, and El
Obelisco (the Obelisk) to the right – just to make sure we know that Buenos
Aires, Argentina, is the home of tango.
The
painting really is a good representation of the dance, with the man tightly
clasping the woman to guide her through the sequences, while the woman leans
slightly into him so she can balance as she adds kicks and swirls with her
foot.
Over in
the lower left corner, there’s a red rose with writing underneath. It says “Por Mama,” for Mama. The artist added this little personal tribute
to his mother, for whatever reason.
On the
lower right corner of the brown acanthus leaf frame, the artist (or artists?)
included the signature, with a very tiny self-portrait. It looks like a father and daughter, so maybe
it’s a small tribute to his daughter. I
thought that was very sweet, to have this little personalization.
And, for
whatever reason, there’s a bird in the upper right corner, enjoying some floral
nectar. Birds are also a common symbol
in fileteado, and art in general. They
often represent freedom, though in religious paintings they represent the Holy
Ghost. Though those birds are usually
white doves, and I’m guessing this might be a green hummingbird – so freedom is
a more likely meaning.
Anyway,
I really enjoyed this kiosk, and just had to share it. If anyone wants to find it, it’s on the
corner of Avenida de Mayo and Santiago de Estero.
I could
see in the distance that the Congress building was there, so I walked on up and
took some photos – the whole park and building is referred to as Plaza de
Congreso. It was still a little drizzly,
so the views are a bit grey, but it’s a nice building with the usual dome that
seems to be on Congress buildings everywhere.
I really
liked the gold-painting lights though – especially against the green trees and
grey skies.
Wandering
back to our hotel, I found a great mural.
Couldn’t quite get all of it in one photo, but basically, the mural is
about the people who were “disappeared” in the 1970s and 80s. Over 30,000 people, some activists and
political protestors, some not, some just family members, were rounded up and
taken away by the military. No one knows
exactly what happened to these people, although most people at this point in
time assume that they were executed.
These are the people, or their descendants, who The Grandmothers are
still looking for, and these are the people for whom The Grandmothers hold a
weekly vigil and protest at the Plaza de Mayo.
The
mural was painted in 2017, and in the center it says that it has been 40
years. “Ni Olvido, Ni Perdon” means
“Never Forget, Never Forgive.” I’m not
sure if the caricature of the man is supposed to be Macri, the current
president of Argentina. He’s reaching
out toward The Grandmothers on the left, who wear their symbolic white head
scarves, as they raise their larger, stronger, and militant fists in
protest. Between that tiny man and the
huge and strong women, it says “Macri, for the hand” or, likely more
accurately, “Macri, by the hand.” (My
Spanish isn’t great, and idioms are always difficult.)
I’m
thinking maybe the artists are saying that the situation is now in the hands of
the current government, and it’s his turn to do something about this massive
human rights violation and atrocity. Not
to continue to sanitize the history by ignoring it, but to release records, or
hold an investigation, or at least help these Grandmothers find out what
happened to their children and reunite them with any grandchildren. Many of the children of the disappeared were
taken by the military as well, and were given to other families for
adoption. These children are using DNA
to find who their real relatives are, and about 300 have been reunited with
their birth relatives. But no one knows
for sure how many children were taken, nor where they are. The Grandmothers are still searching, and
until all of the information is released and the disappeared are accounted for,
The Grandmothers will continue to protest and hold vigils.
It’s a
powerful and emotional mural, public art at its best. Educating and informing the public, calling
for answers, strong imagery, few words. Uses
the images and symbols of the movement, history, and South American
culture. (Check out that very Incan or
Mayan sun.) A reminder of a lost
generation, or even two. Really evokes
emotion from the viewer, and makes people stop and think. Asks questions, demands answers.
The
signature block includes a few names, and includes the Fileteadores des
Conurbano – maybe the name of a Fileteadore association? Of the urban city?
I’m
starting to think that fileteadores are rather political and even militant
artists, that modern artists here may have taken this traditional art form and
are looking for ways to make it more political.
This mural is one example. But in
the history of fileteado, during the early 1970s, right around the time the
disappearances began, the government tried to ban fileteado on vehicles. The painting began on carts, but eventually
moved on to public vehicles like city and regional buses. The government in the 70s felt that this was
confusing people, so they enacted a law to ban fileteado painting on all
vehicles. The city was in an uproar,
with people taking to the streets in protest.
Along with everything else they were protesting, which led to the
disappearances. The government
eventually backed down on the fileteado ban, but it seems as if there’s an
almost tacit understanding that fileteado is the art of the protest movement,
even though it now has become more mainstream and even given UNESCO World
Heritage Intangible Heritage of Humanity status. Not positive about this, just sort of a sense
that fileteado is part of the ongoing protest against totalitarian governments,
sort of an in-your-face subtle protest.
I kind
of like being part of this, if I’m right!
I also
walked by Palacio Barolo, another city landmark. The Palacio is a huge Art Deco building
topped by a lighthouse! It really is
huge, and some people say its design was based on Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” the
trip through the Hell, Purgatory, and onward to Heaven or Paradise. I don’t know, I don’t really see it. Visually, it’s massive and heavy and
ponderous, missing all the airy lightness of the Art Nouveau buildings in the
city. But, I wanted to see it, I did,
and I don’t think I’d have missed anything if I had skipped it. (They do have tours, included night tours, so
that might give more information if someone wants to know more about it.)
More and
more fileteado signs kept appearing in view, and of course I had to take photos
of all of them, no matter how small. The
Tercer Acto, a bar/café with a small theatre, had some gorgeous fileteado
paintings inside. The man working inside
(owner? Manager? Waiter?) said it was okay for me to take
photos. One came out fine, the other
blurry – but they were very detailed, especially for the small size. I have no idea who the two men are in the
portraits, and we don’t have wifi on the cruise – but hey, cool painting,
right?
One of
the tango shoe stores near our hotel had a wonderful fileteado framed window,
and another had fileteado painted awnings.
As I said, now that I know what it is, fileteado seems to be everywhere
in this city!
All in
all, we had a great five weeks in Buenos Aires.
I learned about (and how to paint) an art style that was new to me and
unique to this city and region. We had
nice weather and plenty of walking. We
both learned more about Argentinian culture and history, and we improved our
Spanish a bit. We celebrated New Year’s
Eve, saw several national monuments, and ate good food, including the famous
Argentinian beef. We relaxed, and we had
fun.
And now,
we’re on our ship and off to a new adventure!
Oh I love this artwork and how it flows with the architecture. And I can't help but feel that it is close cousin to Celtic art. thank you SO much for introducing me to something that feels so right. I wonder if I was Argentinian in a past life. ;)
ReplyDeleteI felt like that about Maori art - it was so familiar and just seemed to be buried in my history somehow!
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