Yesterday after work I went to the Colleción Fortabat, the museum of Maria Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, the richest woman in Buenos Aires (cement, railroads). Known as “Amalita” to the public and the Malba staff when they are feeling ironic, she has an extensive collection of Latin American, North American, and Western European works, including several portraits of her.
Peter Bruegel! 10th grade art history.
Turner, taught to me as "golden visions of tinted steam" by the wonderful Marsha Russell.
OK, Ms. Russell taught me all of these artists. Ms. Russell taught me everything I know.The most famous of these is by Andy Warhol and is one of the few he painted of a subject wearing any jewelry. Fitting, as Amalita was also known for her expensive bauble penchant. The Malba girls love this...they get all of Eduardo Costantini’s Sotheby’s and Christie’s catalogs when he is done browsing and when one of diamond necklaces appeared last week among the modern art, they joked that it looked like it came from Amalita’s stack instead.
The museum was phenomenal. It overlooks the northernmost dike of Puerto Madero and the wall facing the water is all glass on the second and third floor. These are called the primero y segundo piso here because the first floor is actually the “base,” numbered 0 in the elevator. So, you are walking along the primer piso, looking at an electric blue painting of Iguazú Falls where you JUST WERE and then you turn around and see the docks at night. It was f i n e.
Then we headed to the centro for dinner with Daniel Korn, head of the Yale Club of Argentina, another alum from the US Embassy, Tina, Ani, Alex, and a translator they knew. It was very interesting to hear the history of the Bulldogs program in Buenos Aires…a recent law banning unpaid labor made a bunch of the companies go through legal loopholes to host us this year, but at least we didn’t have a London-like situation in which only interns with British citizenship could participate. Leslie showed us all the Bulldogs video (we were all very frightened about this, including Leslie, but it turned out great). I got to talk about how much I love my job. It’s love. Then we went to La Cigale to send off Chris and meet his sister. He left today, so now we are two down due to one other person whom I’m missing right now:
I’m working on some more complete thoughts about my experience at Malba which I will probably post when I get back to Austin, along with photos and stories from the in between times. Tomorrow night we are going with Barbara to a milonga where young people dance tango. Friday I am going to my boss’s apartment for my farewell dinner, for which I am supposed to prepare “traditional Texan food.” To which a co-worker responded, Oh, Tequila! I decided on guacamole and pico de gallo instead, as they eat enough steak here already. And I don’t have a barbeque pit.
When I was on the bus on Las Heras yesterday I passed a city public works poster that showed the proposed plan for the Museum of the Argentine Novel and Author. Why this is the most typical porteño thing ever:
1. The city always toots its horn about public works around election time, and especially in wealthy areas.
2. Buenos Aires has a museum for every tiny thing, like the history of the city’s external debt.
3. It’s not enough to have a museum and a cultural center dedicated to Jorge Luis Borges, a museum dedicated to Xul Solar, and an estancia with museum dedicated to the famous gaucho poet Ricardo Güiraldes (I have been to all of these).
4. Argentina is a singular place. The novels here are not like other novels. The authors here are not like other authors.
No comments:
Post a Comment