Art, That Endless River

The Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires presents its new 2023 programme, El arte, ese río interminable [Art, That Endless River], which will extend across exhibitions throughout its galleries from April to August. This ambitious programme aims to showcase the power of the contemporary art scene in Argentina from the 1960s to the present. Over the course of this period, the country has been home to one of the world’s most vibrant and interdisciplinary artistic communities, one that has been at the forefront of experimentation and has acted in response to a turbulent context marked by a myriad of economic, political and social challenges. Despite many highly vulnerable experiences, Argentina’s artistic community has found strength in adversity and has been able to create – free of speculations or concessions – complex and vital, political and anti-establishment art, defying conventions and the latest trends, expressed through powerful, mature and internationally relevant voices. El arte, ese río interminable is a quote from the final verse of Jorge Luis Borges’ Arte poetica [The Art of Poetry], in which the great Argentinean writer reflects on the poiesis, or power, of art, which in itself has the power to create reality. Our 2023 exhibition programme has that same ambition in mind: to reveal the power of Argentinean art as an agent capable of transforming both historical and current realities.

In November, the Museo Moderno will host the annual conference of CIMAM, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art. More than two hundred museum directors from around the world will attend this annual meeting to discuss the role of contemporary art museums. Bearing in mind our responsibility to present the art of Argentina to the museum’s diverse audiences as well as to local and international guests, the Museo Moderno’s curatorial team took on the challenge of designing a wide-ranging programme of new exhibitions that, together, offer multiple ways of accessing the infinite and varied history of contemporary artistic creation in Argentina. El arte, ese río interminable thus seeks to present a plurality of artists and movements from the country’s art scene and to show what identifies us as a country and region, our exuberant territory, our ancestral knowledge, as well as our culture, dreams, anxieties, questions and challenges. It also seeks to provide an account of the substantial interdisciplinary nature of our art, since the title of the overall programme and those of each of the exhibitions it includes have all been drawn from the works of our greatest writers and poets, thus offering a more thorough representation of everything we are.

To build this ambitious programme, the Museo Moderno delved into much research and approached the 1970s from different points of view. Juguetes rabiosos [Mad Toys], curated by Patricio Orellana, brings together works by important Argentinean artists that can be found in the museum’s collection. These are artists who reshaped the history of the decade and of contemporary art through gestures of destruction and dematerialisation, and attitudes that may or may not have been playful, but were always ground-breaking and never conformist. La vida nuevamente [Life Anew], curated by Francisco Lemus, focuses on the emergence in the history of modern and contemporary dance in Argentina of avant-garde women who, at the Instituto Di Tella and other spaces around the city in the 1970s, made an imprint with their extremely audacious, experimental attitudes.

The museum also pays homage to artist Nicolás García Uriburu with the exhibition Manifiesto verde [Green Manifesto], which showcases the pioneering ecological art that he created as early as the 1960s. This exhibition presents curator Alejandra Aguado’s pictorial thesis, developed in dialogue with guest artist Florencia Böhtlingk, on important Argentinean painters who are interested in recognising and protecting the vigour of the natural world, that “wild super-organism of which we are a part”. There is also A 18 minutos del sol [18 Minutes from the Sun], an exhibition that focuses on the territory and has an all-encompassing vision. Curated by Javier Villa and Marcos Krämer, it continues a project promoted by the Moderno for several years now: an investigation of Argentina’s federal artistic production. On this ambitious occasion, the exhibition presents the diverse worldviews of modern and contemporary Argentinean artists from extremely diverse backgrounds, as well as their examinations and perceptions of science, esotericism and fiction. The exhibition, in turn, engages in a dialogue with the staging of El borde de sí mismo [The Edge of Itself], the theatre cycle conceived by Alejandro Tantanian for the Museo Moderno which, in this latest edition, has been co-curated by Javier Villa. It will take the shape of dialogues that drift between the visual and the performing arts, pushing the limits of each discipline, and re-emerging with a new, unprecedented and surprising perspective.

The Museo Moderno will also soon present Sofía Torres Kosiba: Bravaria, one of the solo exhibitions that is the result of the work undertaken throughout the country by Raúl Flores, curator of the Moderno’s Federal Programme. Later, in August, we will feature an exhibition by artists Guillermo Faivovich and Nicolás Goldberg, curated by Javier Villa, which will look at the cultural and scientific history of the Campo del Cielo meteorites that fell to earth more than 4,000 years ago in what are now the provinces of Chaco and Santiago del Estero.

Finally, the programme will close with the exhibitions Cultura colibrí [Hummingbird Culture] and Cien caminos en un solo día [One Hundred Roads in a Day]. Curated by Jimena Ferreiro, these exhibitions put two recent turning points in Argentinean art at centre stage. The first is based on her research into sexual exiles during the last military dictatorship, the return to democracy, and the celebratory experimentation of the bodies of the counterculture in the 1980s and 1990s. The second focuses on the strength of the artistic ideas that burst onto the scene following the country”s economic crisis of 2001, when the Argentinean financial system collapsed. On a monumental urban landscape created especially for this exhibition by artist Luciana Lamothe, a dozen Argentinean artists who work with the materials they have at hand in the city – understood as a laboratory – investigate the possibilities of a vital, dramatic and playful urban art that rises from the rubble.

The group exhibitions bring together works from the Museo Moderno’s own collection, loans from institutions and private collectors as well as major commissions. Manifiesto verde [Green Manifesto], by Florencia Böhtlingk; Juguetes rabiosos [Mad Toys], by Joaquín Aras; Cultura colibrí [Hummingbird Culture], by the poet Fernando Noy; and Cien caminos en un solo día [One Hundred Roads in a Day], by Luciana Lamothe are  four works especially designed for  the 2023 programme, which were based on its themes and time periods, and conceived through dialogue by these incisive, sensible Argentinean artists very much interested in the periods and themes proposed. We are therefore immensely grateful to these four guest artists for their dedication and generosity.

Victoria Noorthoorn
Director

Exhibitions:

The Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires is honoured to present Bravaria, the first solo exhibition by the artist Sofia Torres Kosiba (Córdoba, 1974) at a museum in the City of Buenos Aires.
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Curated by: Raúl Flores
Artist: Sofia Torres Kosiba

18 Minutes from the Sun is an exhibition that addresses astronomical observation and access to outer space as a means of spurring a dialogue between artistic imagination and scientific exploration. Outer space is considered from three different and interconnected perspectives: science, indigenous cosmologies and spirituality.
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Curated by: Javier Villa and Marcos Krämer
Exhibition Design: Iván Rösler
Production: Julieta Potenze
Artists: Erik Arazi, Nicolás Bacal, Gonzalo Beccar Varela, Antonio Berni, Diego Bianchi, Erica Bohm, Martha Boto, Manuel Brandazza, Adriana Bustos, Colectivo Cabezudxs, Feliciano Centurión, Mauricio Cerbellera, Germaine Derbecq, Sonia Delaunay, Sebastián Diaz Morales, Diana Dowek, Faivovich & Goldberg, Beatriz Ferreyra, Pauline Fondevila, Lucio Fontana, Raquel Forner, Gertrudis Frischenschlager, Daniel García, Carlos Luis García Bes, Maia Gattás Vargas, Noemí Gerstein, Sebastián Gordín, Diego Gravinese, Víctor Grippo, Alberto Greco, Silvia Gurfein, Miguel Harte, Alberto Heredia, Alicia Herrero, Alfredo Hlito, Agustín Inchausti, Enio Iommi, Vassily Kandinski, Gyula Kosice, Fernanda Laguna, José Luis Landet, Benito Laren, Daniel Leber, Lux Lindner, Raúl Lozza, Lea Lublin, Víctor Magariños D., Liliana Maresca, Juan Melé, Sebastián Mercado, Estanislao Mijalichen, Mauro Millán, Emiliano Miliyo, Ad Minoliti, Eduardo Molinari, Eduardo Navarro, Héctor G. Oesterheld, Ogwa, Martha Peluffo, Alicia Penalba, Andrés Pereira Paz, Emilio Pettoruti, Francis Picabia, Alberto Pilone, Micaela Piñero, Rogelio Polesello, Marcelo Pombo, Emilio Renart, Ingrid Roddick, Federico Roldán Vukonich, Christian Román, Hernán Salvo, Damián Santa Cruz, Rubén Santantonín, Mario Scorzelli, Aldo Sessa, Francisco Solano López, Xul Solar, Cecilia Sosa, Grete Stern, Axel Strachnoy, Diana Teira, Julián Terán, Colectivo Thañí/Viene del monte, Andrés Toro, Joaquín Torres García, Rodrigo Túnica, Adrián Unger, Gregorio Vardánega, Mariano dal Verme, José Villalonga, Wüsüwül Wirka A Pana, Osías Yanov, Yente

Green Manifesto takes its name from a declaration written by Nicolás García Uriburu (Buenos Aires, 1937-2016) in 1971, in which he expresses his desire to denounce the antagonism between nature and civilisation. Taking as its starting point the work of this pioneering artist and activist who, since the 1960s, has denounced the ways in which human action has destructively advanced over the water, earth, flora and fauna of the world, this exhibition highlights numerous artists who, like García Uriburu, have used their work to show that nature, far from being a simple object of domestication or domination, is a living being.
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Guest Artist: Florencia Böhtlingk
Curated by: Alejandra Aguado
Curatorial Assistance: Rodrigo Barcos
Exhibition Design: Daniela Thomas and Felipe Tassara in collaboration with Iván Rösler
Production: Edgar Lacombe
Artists: Nicolás García Uriburu in dialogue with Luis Fernando Benedit, Florencia Böhtlingk, Melé Bruniard, Juana Butler, Feliciano Centurión, Nora Correas, Casimiro Domingo, Raquel Forner, Ricardo Garabito, Edgardo Giménez, Juan Grela, Aid Herrera, Lido Iacopetti, Marcelo Pombo, Juan Tessi

Rosario Bléfari prefaces this exhibition with a line from Excursiones [Excursions], the cult album she released with her band Suárez in 1999. Her songs evoke emotional images and feelings of the city, while illustrating different ways of moving through it, sometimes aimlessly, discovering ways to reinvent it.
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Staging: Luciana Lamothe
Curated by: Jimena Ferreiro
Production Coordination: Iván Rösler
Production: María Venancio y Martina Estelí
Artists: Nicanor Aráoz, Daniel Basso, Facundo Belén, Belleza y Felicidad Fiorito, Flavia Da Rin, Diego Bianchi, Eugenia Calvo, Paula Castro, Cynthia Cohen, Clara Esborraz, Tomás Espina, Mariana Ferrari, Diego Figueroa, Graciela Hasper, Carlos Herrera, Juliana Iriart, Irina Kirchuk, Luciana Lamothe, Martín Legón, Mariana López, Valentina Liernur, Tomás Maglione, Verónica Meloni, Clorindo Testa

According to Fernando Noy, Batato Barea’s “numeritos” (“little numbers”) – old theatrical slang used to avoid the foreign and neutral word “performance” – in the underworld scene of Buenos Aires took place with the speed and colourful magic of a hummingbird. Time consumed each of his appearances on stage with the same voracity and transience that it did his own life Hummingbird Culture evokes the fantasies of the counterculture in post-dictatorship Argentina, through the chronicles and poetry of Fernando Noy
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Host Artist: Fernando Noy
Curated by: Jimena Ferreiro
Exhibition Design: Daniela Thomas, Felipe Tassara and Iván Rösler
Production: Julieta Potenze
Artists: Diana Aisenberg, Archivo de la Memoria Trans, Hugo Arias, Rubén Baldemar, Batato Barea, Mildred Burton, Delia Cancela, Chiachio & Giannone + Agustina Comedi, Marina De Caro, Sergio De Loof, Facundo de Zuviría, Diana Dowek, Martín Farnholc Halley, Alejandra Fenochio, Luis Frangella, Foto Estudio Luisita, Ana Gallardo, Santiago García Saenz, Edgardo Giménez, Alberto Goldenstein, Federico Klemm, Guillermo Kuitca, Alejandro Kuropatwa, Fernanda Laguna, Bárbara Bianca LaVogue, Alfredo Londaibere, Gustavo Marrone, Marta Minujín, Fernando Noy, Néstor Perlongher, La Chola Poblete, Omar Schiliro, Pablo Suárez, Juan Tessi, Carlos Uría

In the first half of the twentieth century, modern dance spread and installed itself in different training spaces in Argentina, occupying a performance space that enabled an aesthetic renewal. In the 1960s, dance took on a more experimental perspective through the Instituto Di Tella and other stages in Buenos Aires.
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Artists: Amended to reflect the following list:

Dance: Ana Itelman, Ana Kamien, Ana María Stekelman, Cecilia Ingenieros, Dore Hoyer, Esther Ferrando, Graciela Martínez, Iris Scaccheri, José C. Campietelli, Laura Mouta, Lía Jelín, María Fux, Marilú Marini, Marucha Bo, Mercedes Robirosa, Miriam Winslow, Oscar Araiz, Otto Werberg, Patricia Stokoe, Renata Kestelboim, Renate Schottelius, Rodolfo Danton, Estela Maris, Susana Tambutti, Susana Zimmermann
Graphic Design: Carlos Soler, Edgardo Giménez, Humberto Rivas, Juan Andralis, Juan Carlos Distéfano, Norberto Coppola, Roberto Alvarado, Rubén Fontana
Photography: Annemarie Heinrich, Alicia Sanguinetti, Eduardo Newark, Leone Sonnino, Susana Thénon
Video: Ignacio Masllorens, Julia Parodi, Silvina Szperling
Music: Martín Román, Miguel Ángel Rondano
Costumes and objects: Alfredo Arias, María Julia Bertotto, Delia Cancela, Oscar Palacio

Curated by: Francisco Lemus
Curatorial Assistance: Violeta González Santos
Exhibition Design: Daniela Thomas, Felipe Tassara e Iván Rösler
Graphic Design: Job Salorio
Production: Patricia Pedraza

Special thanks for their contributions to the research: Victoria Alcalá, Irene Aschero, Oscar Araiz, Anabel Caeiro and Natalia Iglesias (Estudio María Fux), Margarita Bali, Mariana Bellotto, María Julia Bertotto, Mariela Cantú (Arca Video Argentino), Patricia Dorin, Paula Félix-Didier, Leandro Varela and Andrés Levinson (Museo del Cine), Victoria Fortuna, Carlos Fos and Pía Villaronga (CEDOC “Ana Itelman”, Complejo Teatral de Buenos Aires), Diego Fischerman, Rubén Fontana, Fernando García, María Martha Gigena, Edgardo Giménez, Beba González Toledo, Marcelo Isse Moyano, Silvia Kaehler, Déborah Kalmar, Ana Kamien, Sofía Kauer and Nicolás Licera Vidal (Investigación histórica, Archivo Graciela Martínez), Kado Kostzer, Lía Jelín, Fernanda Pinta, Martín Paz and Inés Esteves (Archivo IIAC-UNTREF), Lucrecia Platt, Wustavo Quiroga, Alicia Sanguinetti, Sergio Selim, Andrea Servera, Diana Szeimblum, Leone Sonnino, Silvina Szperling, Susana Tambutti, Pablo Tesoriere, Milka Truol and Javier Villa.

In 1961, Kenneth Kemble invited a group of artists to participate in an exhibition in which, instead of creating works of art, they would destroy them. The exhibition, Arte destructivo [Destructive Art], which was held at the Galería Lirolay in Buenos Aires, showed a series of objects – ranging from furniture and umbrellas to a large number of children’s toys – subjected to all kinds of destruction and presented in an installation that was as ominous as it was humorous.
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Guest Artist: Joaquín Aras
Curated by: Patricio Orellana
Exhibition Design: Daniela Thomas, Felipe Tassara and Iván Rösler
Production: Julieta Potenze
Artists: Joaquín Aras, Fernando Birri, Zulema Ciordia, Noemí Di Benedetto, Leonardo Favio, León Ferrari, Luis Gowland Moreno, Alberto Greco, Alberto Heredia, Kenneth Kemble, Julio Ludueña, Rómulo Macció, Marta Minujín, Luis Felipe Noé, Margarita Paksa, Aldo Paparella, Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos, Dalila Puzzovio, Nicolás Rubió, Rubén Santantonín, Américo Spósito, Edgardo Antonio Vigo, Luis Alberto Wells, Yente

The word ‘otumpa’ comes from the Chiriguano term ‘motumpa’, meaning to ‘apotheosise, divinise or deify’. This was the Chiriguanos’ name for a flat plain with tangled vegetation that was difficult to penetrate, and also for a geological formation concealing such a place: a pit possibly generated by the impact of an extra-terrestrial object.
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Artists: Guillermo Faivovich and Nicolás Goldberg
Curated by: Javier Villa
Production: Edgar Lacombe and María Venancio