 back to the APP underworld! |
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Making the Most of Those Long Argentine Nights [...] To find Appetite, an avant-garde gallery that everyone I met recommended, I had to return to one of San Telmo's less atmospheric blocks. Pop-punk exuberance is Appetite's stock in trade, its walls (and floors) are covered in a profusion of styles, from Ariel Cusnir's paintings of idealized tropical islands and Anabella Papa's witty paintings of beautiful, casual violence (schoolboys brawling, a man attacked by a wolf) to a row of blue plastic shopping bags and a paint can frozen in mid-spill atop a table. Visiting these lesser-known corners takes a bit of effort. Taxis, which at first blush seem so fast and cheap, get caught in unexpected waves of traffic, and the Subte, or subway, so efficient at whisking people to and from the city center, is worthless if you need to go across town. Walking, while a great way to take in the architecture and vibrant street life, can tire you out, making late-night festivities a literal yawn. And if, like me, you don't speak Spanish well, it can seem pointlessly strenuous to wander outside the comfort zone of Palermo. The rewards, however, are worth the fatigue. At Appetite, I was led around the corner to a warehouse where Mr. Cusnir and the fashion label Maison Trash were rehearsing a production of Mr. Cusnir's art — complete with sand, palm tree and big model helicopter. And in the Pan y Arte restaurant in Boedo, I ate sublime Mendoza-style cuisine — sweet-corn empanadas, lush calabaza casserole and excellent Mendoza malbec wine — in a room full of actors and directors. In each case, I felt as if I'd begun to penetrate that tricky tourist-local barrier. What's more, I got a sense of the city's size and interconnectedness — it was more than just a few neighborhoods I'd seen in glossy magazines and coffee table books. [...] New York Times, February 4, 2007
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“La carnicería is not a store where they sell frozen cows, but the result of the decision of Daniela Luna -promoter of the emerging gallery Appetite- of investing her year of profits in opening a new space and separating, fisically, market from experimentation. Only one block from the original gallery, at a giant shed that maintains an abandonment atmosphere …”
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GALLERY EXHIBITIONS Appetite Gallery What's exciting about the arts scene in Buenos Aires is the amount of genuinely talented younger artists to be found, and there is no better place to see their work than Appetite Gallery, an artist-run venue. It's a funky, alternative little space, covering painting, installation, video, performance—you name it—and much of the work has a youthful, edgy exuberance. Downstairs, two content-related exhibitions are currently running side by side. “Brush Your Teeth Well,” by Nicanor Araoz, has a theme about how we treat animals, and as a consequence, how we treat and are treated ourselves. In one work, a toy rabbit sits poking out of a cannon, facing a wall where other furry creatures lie embedded, along with the outline of one that couldn't even stay up there. In another, a duck stands on a table with a resolute expression on its face, a mouse on its head and a pair of missiles strapped to its wings—the duck is ready to go where no duck has gone before. The background is wallpaper featuring the heads of royalty. The humor in this show has bite: The rabbit is mere cannon fodder; the duck is ready to die for his country. The other exhibition, Veronica Gomez’s “The Rabbit—Preliminary Studies,” creates as an installation a mock laboratory, “Laboratorios Baigorria S.A.,” which is ostensibly involved in exhaustive research to discover whether rabbits make suitable domestic pets. The first thing I picked up in the installation was a magazine, El Gazapo, Argentina's first magazine only about rabbits. At first I thought it was a spoof, but it turns out to be the real thing. Next I thought El Gazapo must be a magazine about keeping rabbits as pets (for a logo, there is a grinning, Bugs Bunny-type creature and a pair of cuddly little cuties on the front cover). But then I noticed that the leading article was all about how good rabbit meat is for you, and there was all kind of helpful advice on how to skin and cook your furry friend. The exhibition contains genuine letters of correspondence between the “Laboratory” and rabbit-breeding companies; and a video of a rabbit being put through all manner of bizarre tests to see if it makes a fit and able human companion (footage includes a colander moving across the table with a bunny underneath and a deadpan dreadlock bunny, with a pair of clothespins attached to its ears). The sense of detail in the installation is particularly impressive, right down to a little bottle on a shelf, with an eyedropper-stopper labeled “Tears from the waiting room.” Laughter and tears are to be had with both of these shows’ allusions to the human condition: the dignity we all try to maintain as life makes us go running on its little wheels and jumping through its little hoops. -------------------- Ostinatto Buenos Aires Hostel The Ostinatto Buenos Aires Hostel, around the corner from Appetite, also has a commercial gallery space downstairs, which Appetite is currently using to show one of its member’s works. The 21-year-old Victoria Musotto is a stunning artist. If I had the money, and somewhere to keep them, I would buy every one of these paintings and have them as my private stash. You wouldn't need booze or drugs to pick you up if you had one of these at home. I don't think I've ever seen paintings that made me feel so good, so happy: like getting sucked into one of those electric-blue cocktails that spits you back out feeling light-headed and light-hearted. So full of color and spirit and energy, if you were to hang these in an old folk's home, you would have them throwing away their walkers and getting down to some House music.
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“… Daniela Luna contradicts astronomic laws, she has the earth at her feet and around her gallery/planet orbit many of the new best artists. […] she carries the gallery with exquisite artist gluttony. It’s well known that artists-run-galleries are the last cry of international art, and Appetite owns the unquestionable prize of the best openings of Buenos Aires. Making excess and experimentation her war shout she journeys strip trash cyberhot aesthetics […] “I feel attracted by technology advances and how this creates new codes and affects the relations. Usually I work using my life as a starting point.” […]”
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February 4, 2007
