There is a lot to be learned from the 21st edition of arteBA in Buenos Aires.

1. One art fair at a time can be a good thing.  In contrast to art fair weeks with multiple, concurrent art fairs, arteBA held the spotlight with no competing fairs, which led to an intimate and enjoyable experience for collectors. The city of Buenos Aires offers plenty to capture your mind and eyes, including: Fundación Proa, an amazing contemporary art museum; Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), a must-see for Latin American art; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, a survey of international art; and many sights of the city like Cementerio de Recoleta and Centro Cultural Recoleta. Given this full agenda of sights to see, not having to worry about multiple fairs frees you to enjoy everything the city has to offer at an enjoyable pace.

2. Surrounding events enrich the experience. The 98 galleries showing at arteBA gave collectors an expansive look at Latin American artwork and a great opportunity to get a good deal; additionally, surrounding events organized by the fair with local spaces added energy and enrichment to the experience.

3. A dynamic art scene lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Local spaces in Buenos Aires range from institutions like MALBA and PROA to lively artist residencies like Boulogne Sur Mer Art-Bulding. Nascent galleries with international vision are beginning to take hold. For example, Peña Galería recently opened a beautiful space in Recoleta. Make sure to map their address before visiting, as the underground space is hidden behind a nondescript wood-paneled door. The gallery features emerging artists and organized a show in New York City earlier this year. Rounding out the scene, established galleries display interesting works, most notably at Ruth Benzacar Gallery.

4. There is much great Latin American art to be seen. Below are some quick pictures from the events.

arteBA Fair Opening Night

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I am excited about the potential of In Protest, an event organized in tandem by the Kadist Art Foundation and the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, to be held Wednesday, May 9^th at 7pm.

Artists have been asked to design posters with a specific or abstract political message to be given away at this one night event. The list of artists includes many whom I instantly associate with politically charged practices such as Rigo 23, Martha Rosler, and Natasha Wheat and many whose posters may help recast their interests in a more political light.

The artists are Zarouhie Abdalian, John Baldessari, Amy Balkin, Dodie Bellamy, Charlie Dubbe, Amy Franceschini, Doug Hall, Kevin Killian, Paul Kos, Tony Labat, Shaun O’Dell, Rigo 23, Piero Golia, Jordan Kantor, Martha Rosler, Allan Sekula, Mungo Thomson and Natasha Wheat.

Questions of art praxes’ political potentials and limitations are constantly swirling, all the more so in these highly charged times of active protest movements. The world has yet to come to terms with the revolutions recently transpired or those still afoot. And the future is less than settled in nations whose ‘completed’ revolts in the Arab Spring have left them in a terrible and dangerous state of flux. A military government is still in control of Egypt and in advance of elections, vying political factions are falling victim to massacres such as the one in Cairo on May 2^nd.  Closer to home (and much tamer despite the press’ over emphasis on its outlying criminal element) we have our local Occupy, revitalized in its May Day general strike. In each of these protests and in the more everyday ones (usually in the grand tradition of labor struggles, but also against abortion and pro or against various political personalities and parties) the arts play a major role, both as means of message production (signs, banners, et al.) and as a foothold for giving the myriad people some cohesiveness (ex. the various strains of music performed and DJed).

During a March 31^st talk at the Kadist curator Nato Thompson, whose excellent exhibition Living as Form is about to finish its satellite run in SF, discussed various ways in which art could engage with a wider audience, purpose and potential, noting (I’m paraphrasing) the worst thing we could do is commission a bunch of posters. But is such a curatorial proposal so untenable? In the introduction to Dorathea von Hantlemann’s excellent How to Do Things With Art (2010), she describes her theme as, “How does art become politically or socially significant and what preconditions must be fulfilled in order to enable artworks to attain such significance?”

In Protest will raise these questions anew, confronting Thompson’s challenge and interrogating Hantlemann’s question. Each artist will address both the specific audience in attendance and the vitality of their medium (the poster and art as a whole) in the context of the museum and the wider political conversation. And we,  the viewers,  will walk away with works of art.