goodbye argentina

Above,Artist Andrea Cavagnaro, was gracious enough to organize a dialogue;exchange at her apartment with me and several Portenos doing interventionist work. I showed them my own work and other work in public spaces in LA from the files I~ve gathered teaching Chicano art and popular culture: murals, graffiti, performznces, actions, interventions. It was an amazing, inspiring exchange as they bounced off the work I showed in relation to their own works and the specifics of their own, political, economic, social contexts.
The artists here are really vigilant about all aspects of art/cultural production: historiography, curation, funding, their relationship with or not with institutions. The question of working ìnside`or òutside´art institutions came up in almost every conversation. Some argued that within Argentina, there is an òutside´ space that artists have carved out in the last 10 years, and especially within the last 5 years after the crisis, in which individuals, groups have abandoneds art institutions and act outside through numerous tactics, performative acts, actions, interventions, etc. creating a vibrant space of dialogue with the larger society. Others argued that this paradigm is a false one, and there is no real inside and outside, asserting that working òutside´the art circuit does not mean the work is more or less political. Regardless, I did feel that I got a taste of an important moment in political art and street art. Some artists groups to check out: Taller Popular de Serigrafia, Etcetera, Eduardo Molinari´s Archivo Caminante, CAPATACO/Gastar, Arde Arte, GAC (Grupo de Arte Callejero), and Silhuetazo. (thkanks to Jennifer Sternad Flores for some of these recommendations)