The Giggle Loop! {Art in Buenos Aires}

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Let’s talk about the ART scene in Buenos Aires. There’s hardly a wall without graffiti and hardly a restaurant without paintings on sale adorning the walls. Then we walked by this gorgeous graffiti made with recycled material such as bottle caps, glass, CDs. We were feeling very inspired indeed! And made this brave attempt to enter a Museum, which was literally on the opposite side of the road.

Recycled Graffiti opposite MACBA

We asked the pretty English speaking girl sitting at the counter 

“Can we visit the museum?”

“Are you looking for MACBA, MALBA or MAMBA?”

Now I *knew* those are abbreviations for museums. I did my research before arriving in the country. *Lots* of “BA”s I had lined up to totally avoid. I mean we’re the people who went to Paris and didn’t enter the Louvre (In spite of reading the very famous Dan Brown book!).

But I didn’t know which BA is which. So I blurted out 

“which is this one?”

“This ones MACBA, the museum for contemporary art, the one next door is MAMBA, the museum for modern art. If you’re looking for Latin American Art, you need to visit MALBA”. 

Uh, who cares? We wanted to see some Art! We were so graffiti inspired! I tried to play along. Blame meeting an English speaking person in a Spanish speaking country for pointless lengthy conversation. Another pretty girl joined in and this was just getting out of hand. 

This was the first glass of the giggle loop.

Haven’t heard of the giggle loop? Here is an episode from “Coupling” (S1 E03), a BBC show that was aired over a decade ago (Still makes us laugh!)

Jump to 2:10 to watch Geoffrey explain it or 25:00 to watch it happen! Or if you’re a fan you can watch the whole episode. Go ahead, I wont mind! 

So they went on explaining the difference between Contemporary Art and Modern Art … Modern is modern but most of the artists are dead already while contemporary artists are still alive and are still making art…. and why both are brilliant…

Second glass.

Now we couldn’t possibly back out. Neither could we burst out laughing so we quickly cut the conversation 

“two tickets please!”

“You may be tempted to touch the Art Installations but they’re not meant to be touched!” She warned.

Are you serious? Third glass stacked right on.. as we quickly scrambled our way in..

The first floor was this HUGE space surrounded by paintings of geometric shapes. Squares. Rectangles. Triangles. A good geometry brush up for my 4 year old.

The second floor was a this HUGE space surrounded by black and white photos of people. Some were blurred. How artistic.

The third floor was this HUGE space with installations. The Installations were gothic art pieces tastefully smudged with three tone paint with the backdrop of elliptical shapes. 

i.e. 7 painted drums. Like *literally* 2 drums painted in yellow, 3 in white and 2 in black. I kid you not. 

The giggle loop was complete and the glasses came crashing down.

All the pent up frustration of holding it all in combined with the irritation of our last day in Argentina being spent walking around in a dead, dirty part of the city, in the rain, on a gloomy day, with my aching heels, and the weight of my backpack, came out all at once. In a hilarious stupid laugh. Tears filled up my eyes till I couldn't see anymore. I laughed till my sides ached...my "LOL" was just a teeny bit short of "ROFL"

“They’re Monochromatic fucking drums!! Why will anyone with a sane mind pay to see drums and most importantly WHO are these people who are tempted to TOUCH 'em?!!” 


*More* peels of laughter.. that echoed through the corridors. Judging by the guard's non-reaction, I'm thinking it's not the first time this had happened. 

Well that’s contemporary Art for you.

I have new appreciation for my 4 year old’s art work. 

We’re idiots aren’t we?!!

THE drums!! ta - da !

THE photographs

San Telmo Antique Store

THE REAL ART: in a San Telmo restaurant

THE geometric art in MACBA

Graffiti

A Store Window

Book Stalls Graffiti near Teatro Colón

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Until later! Stay in touch!

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