Living and working with Art & Antiques as well as Travelling Argentina Brazil Chile and Uruguay by Bob Frassinetti

The National Museum of Fine Arts Buenos Aires
Topic: Art

MNBA

The Museum and a bit of its History. The National Museum of Fine Arts, known in Spanish as el Museo de Bellas Artes, and by its initials, MNBA.  The Building is located on the Avenue of the Liberator number 1473 in the Recolecta area, of the City of Buenos Aires. The building dates from 1870 and in what was once used and known as the old House of Pumps, building that was owned and run as part of the water works of the neighbourhood  Recoleta and by the Sanitary Works of the Nation, OSN.

Inaugurated on the 23 of May of 1933, with the presence of the then President of the Nation, Agustin P Justo and with the help of the Association of Friends of the Museum, that had been created the 22 of October of 1931. From its inauguration to the present days, the museum has been modernized and updated with several reforms. In 1961 a new Pavilion was added.

See Video Clip of the Museum and its permanent Fine Art Exhibition: 

The Buenos Aires Art Dealer a e-zine magazine on Art, Antiques & Collectibles from Argentina. The Buenos Aires ArtDealer, Argentina.

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Art Argentina History 

Art Argentina History Topic: Art Modern Art in Argentina The evolution of nouvelle art lines has always been a reflection of a deeper kind of evolution that is a new world conception growing and developing in society. By 1810 what was soon to become Argentina was breathing the new waves of modernity thru means of the influx of the newest trends of thought exported by the French Revolution. We can see the sub terrain impact of the influence in a critical breaking point evidenced by the fading of the seeming ever strong religious theme proper of Colonial times. In stead, there was an evident growth of pictorial activities featuring portraits and custom like scenes. In the early days of the 19th century, the flow of immigration to Argentina was nothing compared to what it would become by mid 1800; however, the southern American vice royal capital received a large number of international artists who temporarily relocated to our country. It’s interesting to see the evidence of the influence our region had on these artists and their works, for you can see how they blended with the local feel, for their works exhibit insightful scenes of every day customs and life in the River Plate. An English sailorman Emeric Essex Vidal (1791-1861), left behind when he returned to his homeland, a set of water colors with text that offer an amazing snap shot of our region’s past. Carlos Enrique Pellegrini (1800-1875), an Italian engineer who came to the River Plate to work on developing public services, ended up taking upon oil painting in the rough days of the Independent wars when all public administration was put on hold. Adolfo D'Hastrel (1805-1875), was yet another sailorman who while in Argentina developed a collection of drawings and watercolors. Cesar Hipolito Bacle (1790-1838), developed a lithography collection on outfits and customs of the province of Buenos Aires. Raimundo Monvoisin (1790-1870) and Mauricio Rugendas (1802-1858) were yet two other foreign artists who left a durable mark in our artistic history. Monvoisin who lived in Buenos Aires and latter on relocated to Chile, was the man, mind and hands behind Gaucho Federal and La porteña en el Templo. Rugendas, on the other hand created outstanding Works such as Desembarco de pasajeros en Buenos Aires and Mariquita Sanchez de Mendivillie’s portrait. Throughout the 19th century, Argentine artists of great skills such as Carlos Morel (1813-1894) and Prilidiano Pueyrredon (1823-1873), left a perdurable mark in our history of Arts. Another turning point in the development of the Arts in Argentina would become when reaching the middle of the century. It was then when a group of young artists began to actively participate in the organization of Artistic institutions such as the Fine Art Stimulus Society, the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts. These innovations were the result of a tight bong established between the group and the nouvelle art movements that were taking place in the old continent. Eduardo Sivori’s fine Works and style would be considered as the introductory of naturalism in Argentina, evoking eloquently the Argentine country side traditional folkways theme. Angel Della Valle took upon the challenge and followed Sivori’s style adding a true personal flavor. Reinaldo Giudice (1853-1927) and Ernesto de La Carcova (1866-1927) brought to Argentina a formal repertoire of neoclassic, romantic and naturalist elements adapting these techniques to the newly born cultural context of Argentina. The new century came together with new impulses within the local art scene. The introduction of impressionism was done by Martin Malharro (1865-1911). Malharro along with Faustino Brughetti (1877-1956), Walter de Navazio (1887-1919) and Ramon Silva (1890-1919), turned the Argentine painting history upside down, when their landscape works began to become the true star of our artistic world. Argentine specialists on the evolution of the local art scene agree in pointing the age of the 1920s as the turning point in the Argentine Arts. It was then when a true modernization of the plastic language took place. Working all together, at the same time, were Emilio Petorutti, Group of Paris, Alfredo Guttero, Xul Solar, the Artists of the People, the La Boca group among others. Them all, from a broad variety of formal and ideological angles, began to question the local state of art. They began to develop a parallel art scene apart from the official organizations and created open spaces for new artists far away from the cannon, allowing experimentation, self definitions and exploration of new aesthetic lines… The ever growing and developing art scene was a reflection of a Cultural Revolution taking place in the country. From this moment on, the arts in Argentina will evolve and revolt constantly, positioning our country in the list of culturally at the avant-garde in the international scene.

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Contemporary Argentine Art
Topic: Art
Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind
which searches into nature and which there divines
the spirit of which Nature herself is animated.”
Auguste Rodin quotes




What is contemporary art besides de chronological definition…We believe is the synthetic expression thru means of artistic tools of our historical time, our epoch, its own cultural necessities. Different art types are possible in different time eras, because these are a cultural response to a state of life, thought and feelings.

Art, in all its forms has always been an interpretation of reality. Given the tools humanity developed throughout time, the ways in which life, thought and action –reality as a wholesome- were recorded artistically depended upon them.
The singular interpretation of reality by art has and still is shaping it as no other discipline, the subjective relationship of man and its surroundings.

Art has always been a relationship between the subjective and time, a given moment, a determined society. Art is never a-temporal, thought it might seem like that… Even the so-called timeless works, are timed. Never in history was a given art-work been admired and appreciated alike throughout the centuries and decades. Hence, what we’re producing currently as art is and will be a reflection of a moment in time –explicitly or implicitly- regardless the means of appropriation whether if its abstraction, lyricism, realism, etc…

In Argentina, the turning point in what can be addressed as contemporary art can be spotted around the 50s. It was then, when Modernity Vanguards were taking up the stage of world art. Latin American identity was developing within its limits returning to itself, to its sense of uniqueness; having being born under the aegis of European influx and developed in the margins of an outer world, it was throughout its institutional and borderline non institutional developments that it began to look inside its self sense of aesthetics and culture, stories and histories…The necessity of updating the artistic language so broadly expressed within the world’s art scene, it was also felt in the Latin sub continent. But that need bumped into a deeper conflict, that is the local and the foreign, the indigenous and the European. There’s an identity conflict which was once conceived as fixed, steady, permanent, anchored far away from the present, beholding the possibility of change and reality character for itself and no one but its immediate world. But, when the winds of change came, the possibility of subverting the given state of art, revolution of techniques, conceptions, ideas, reality that was to be fixated on canvass has been found to be pure constant evolution…

Artists then began to be an introspect to there proper souls… This syntax of a problem would come to a solution only two decades latter after it was first conceived as an issue that needed solution.

The seventies provided a rich era of thought and philosophy, and the new logical conceptions provided the conceptual troubled artists –those who felt as being pulled from global to local and back to universal- an interesting way out: identity appeared as a synthesis, multicultural, multi ethnic, hybrid. It was the opportunity of incorporating more universal like mediums and languages, featuring local contents and traditions, self imposed desires. The result was a true new meaning of universal sources, understood and defined from the immediate concrete onwards; the new identity conception gave birth to a new sort of Latin American and argentine art.

What were definitive answers, radical transformations or global synthesis, became individual resolutions of contemporary art, that art of the multiple, the diverse, the use of the own and that of the other, the popular and the traditional, the new and the old techniques, the modern and the contemporary blend into the self need of expression, using all available means and tools, creating the ones that weren’t there yet.

Contemporary Argentine artists such as Vito Campanella and Leopoldo Torres Aguero, each within its field, within its view of the world and the techniques and style that they developed to be their own, are a living example of these trends we pointed out above.



Vito Campanella


Leopoldo Torres Aguero


Francisco Adaro, a young Argentine artist whose works are evolving greatly in these days, exhibits the above mentioned synthesis, of style between the own and the foreign, the traditional and the avant-garde styles. While Monique Rozanes has synthesized modernity in her sculptures of contemporary art.

Helmut Ditsch and Guillermo Kuitka, each in their own personal style have conquered the world with their outstanding technique, imagination as well as artistic conception. Both argentine, both unique, each brilliant in his own world of significances, admirers and collectors…

Contemporary Argentine Art is not only prolific, but in its own, unique, with a true sense of aesthetic self conception shaped upon the endless conceptual canvases. Its outstanding growth in the local and international art scene, in strong art centers such as France, England, United States, Germany and Latin American capitals of great artistic feel… The Argentine contemporary art is not only up to the challenge of today’s art scene, but it’s presenting a self statement of style, conception and concept.



So if you are interested in Art or Antiques from Argentina, and you are travelling to Buenos Aires please feel free to contact and email us.


Art & Antique Dealer Bob Frassinetti

Folf Art, Tramp Art and Popular Art in Argentina
Topic: Art
Folk Art and Horse drawn Carriages.

The recent years of economic turmoil resulted in the rebirth of ancient traditions and crafts. A clear example to this statement is the proliferation of horse pulled carriages throughout Buenos Aires.

This is not a tourism attraction strategy; on the contrary, it’s the cheapest means of transportation for the poor, who in these days of high unemployment and poverty rates have reinvented recycling.

They come out early in the mornings from their houses atop their old carriages, pulled by tired and old horses, and head towards the city to collect all sort of garbage and disposable carton, paper, tin, glass… in many cases in order to get to the heart of all this potential recycling they have to leave their horses and carriages in the outskirts and head into the city with a smaller cart pulled by their own strength for the city’s legislation forbids the use of animal pulled vehicles within the streets of the modern city. The debate around this matter has been rich and in some cases controversial, due to the fact that on one hand they are earning a living while helping the city recycle what in other situation would have been burnt together with the rest of the organic and plastic garbage. On the other hand, this is not an organized work form, hence, after they search for recycling items, there’s a leftover mess that is somewhat uncomfortable. But this debate is not the matter that has raised the need of writing about this matter.

What has raised our attention is the fact that around and together with this alternative mean of subsistence, an artistic form has developed in parallel.

A similar expression of cultural and artistic motives we had found while researching the history of toys, in which the poor margins of society developed true and unique artistic forms of toys made out of handy chips and bits of all sort of materials.

Alike this clever outcome to the fact that these families are enabled to purchase toys –in fact they live in the margins of poverty- horse drawn carriages have been reinvented and styled upon the new times that run. What during the early days of the 20th was the liveliest artistic and decorative expression, fileteado porteño, in recent days has mutated into a mixture of this lively color contrast and image impact to a new form.

This can be described as a specific type of folk art very close to what was christened as tramp art without being the exact same thing. This kind of folk art is now to be seen in several of these vintage carriages that have been adapted to the needs of the moment. Unlike tramps, the Argentine version of this specific art form is not society outcasts by choice, but impoverished members of what once was a broad working class.

Taking this in account, it appears even more valuable the fact that while working to earn a living taking advantage of anything they can before falling out of society, and even in this terrible case scenario, they take strength in whatever they can to foresee a bright future, even if it’s just through means of these artistic expressions.


See also book on Fileteado Porteno Image Gallery,is a specific kind of decorative art from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Born in the early days of the 20th century the origins of this particular aesthetic form can be traced to the old continent specially among the Gypsies.
Photo Image Gallery.

Fileteado Porteno,Argentina

The new groove of Latin American Art around the Aworld.
Topic: Art
The Times are changing for Latin American Art around the world.



Two recent auctions of Latin American art held by the prestigious houses of Sotheby's and Christies have proven right a tendency line that's been rising from the shadows during the last decade. The repositioning of Latin America as a strong cultural scene in the world's scenario has revalued the subcontinent in all its richness and diversity, highlighting its break thru tendencies and innovative lines of thought as much as it’s philosophical approaches to the modern world.

Sotheby's established a world auction record this last month when one of Frida Kahlo's paintings sold for nearly 6 million dollars. However this brilliant sale wasn't the only record breaker of the month, for the famous auction house reached the sum of 18,658,800 dollars, the highest most total ever obtained in a Latin American works' auction. Several Latin artists such as the Mexican Francisco Zuniga, the Cuban Tomas Sanchez and the Argentine Luis Tomasello, also marked the evolution of a more coveted and appreciated market.

Read all about Art in Argentina here: Press HERE for Art in Argentina.



These new winds blowing under the wings of Latin American modern artists are taking them to the centre scene, and placing their works before the eyes of world wide collectors that prestige the Latin art as one of the 20th century most brilliant developments. And contemporary with this newly achieved world location we assist to the birth of the 21st century vanguard. The new avant-garde artists of today develop in a whole different world of technology, technique and reality approach/appreciation.

Parallel to the evolution of new art trends -such as those found in the recently finished ART BA exhibit of Buenos Aires, Argentina[1]- a new generation of art collectors is growing with personal and unique group features responding to this modern contemporary era of aesthetic and arts.

The market actors are changing. More accurately, the actors who work upon this specific market of collectibles and art are expanding and broadening their field of interests.

Meaning?

That the traditional art collections are still ranking top, while a new set of trends, aesthetics, vanguards and art
conception is also gaining terrene as appreciated art artefacts.

We might call upon the initiators, the Arensberg couple, for they can be seen on as the initial break thru collectors and patrons who chose to collect industrialized artwork, the ready-made kind of art that has so much of these modern times, its aesthetic, its advertising-like side aesthetic, the concept idea of an art lab that adds a mutation to what seemed immutable in terms of socially accepted art. It's a true statement that art would have never transitioned these experimental paths if it weren't for the fact that each new art statement in the creative side is always accompanied by the receptiveness of an equally vanguard public that grows to appreciate in depth the ideas and creations of the new generations. It's the ABC of communication, which requisite for communicating something is that there's a sender and a receptor. Communicating the sense of an era exploring the edges of the accepted and further is plausible thanks to the givers and the receivers.

Artists and collectors alike are crossed by the challenge of a new era that is yet to be known and understood. This emerging art resulting of the contemporary culture contradictions and fascinating unsure statements defies us to rely on our senses, open-mind-ness and the fact that we know nothing about what is provoking such rich and interesting reactions within ourselves.

Our Art dealer project has grown and developed under these conceptions, we've began to explore a world of culture and art that was broadly unknown, expanding the traditional conception of art to areas broadly ignored by the traditional art scene such as toys, antiques, vintage items, vehicles. We work under the influence of modernity valuing our past while projecting towards the future.

www.flickr.com artdealer_ar's ARTE BA 2006 EVENT in Buenos Aires Argentina photoset