the Buenos Aires Review » Buenos Aires

Zweifel

Martín Felipe Castagnet — Wed, 30 Aug 2017 18:51:20 +0000

Martín Gambarotta
Übersetzt von Timo Berger

Hier ist das Wasser anders, die Schuppenblätter

der Artischocken sind anders, alles ist

im Wesentlichen anders

aber der, der eine Flasche aus dem Kühlschrank fischt

und sie auf die Arbeitsplatte stellt, ist

grundsätzlich derselbe.

Ihr, die ihr euch für die Konfrontation

entscheidet, ihr die ihr euch für

die Konfrontation entscheidet, ihr

die ihr euch für die Konfrontation entscheidet

Ihr die ihr euch für den Nachhall entscheidet, ihr

die ihr euch für den Nachhall entscheidet, ihr, die

ihr euch für den Nachhall entscheidet.

Ihr, die ihr euch für den Zweifel entscheidet, ihr

die ihr für den Zweifel entscheidet, ihr, die ihr für den Zweifel

entscheidet.

Ihr, die ihr die für die Anomalie entscheidet, ihr

die ihr für die Anomalie entscheidet, ihr, die ihr für die Anomalie

entscheidet.

Ihr, die ihr millimetergenau eure Handlungen

messt, ihr, die ihr millimetergenau

eure Handlungen messt, ihr

eure Handlungen messt.

Fünfzehn Monate, drei der Monate

um den Rest der Monate zu entschlüsseln

deine Monate, das heißt im Norden der

Monate war nichts.

Ich schließ mich der Gewerkschaft

des Zweifels an

ich schließ mich

der Gewerkschaft des Zweifels an

ich schließ mich der Gewerkschaft

des Zweifels an

Ihr, die ihr fähig seid zu materialiseren, ihr

die ihr fähig seid, zu materialisieren. Ihr, die ihr fähig seid

zu materialisieren.

Ihr, die ihr den Nutzen nicht versteht

stundenlang, ganze Tage Vögel

mit Fernstechern beobachtet zu haben und

ihre Namen in Bestimmungsbücher einzutragen.

Die Vogelart

gut zu kennen

bevor man sie benennt

ist die einzig ehrliche

Form

sie zu benennen

als er sah

was vier wilde Papageien

schienen

im rasenden Flug

durch die schütteren Palmen

eines Platzes

und unisono: grüne

Jagdflieger

in Miniatur

Zickzack fliegend

um zusammen Tel Aviv

in den Himmel zu schreiben

konnte er deshalb

die Erfahrung

nicht gut verdauen

Der flüchtige Schachspieler in einem Vergnügungspark

Die Haarspalterei verzerrt den Blick

Es ist nicht der Moment, die Artischocke

auf eine makellosen Arbeitsplatte aus Edelstahl zu legen

und es ist nicht der Moment zu untersuchen

warum er keine Artischocke

auf die Arbeitsplatte gelegt hat: Es ist nicht der einziehbare Moment

der alles zurückversetzende Moment, der Moment

jedem Monat eine Farbe zuzuweisen

der Moment des schwarzen Lappens, der über

seinem Kopf flattert.

Wenn du willst

dass dein Zuhause

Babylon ist

ohne Visum

kannst du nicht

singen

wenn du dich nicht

auf eine Plastikstuhl

setzen möchtest

wenn du singt

gibt man dir kein

Visum.

Er ist nicht hier

ist Mazze

holen gegangen

er ist nicht hier

ist für ein Bad

zun Fluss gegangen

er ist nicht hier

ist sich in der Leere

drehen gegangen

er ist nicht hier

ist aus der Kälte

in die Kälte gegangen

* *

Go back to the English

* *

Bilder: Delfina Estrada, “Campo de batalla” [Schlachtfeld]

Cardenio (excerpt)

Martín Felipe Castagnet — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 03:48:40 +0000

Carlos Gamerro

They lived together on the Bankside, not far from the playhouse, both bachelors; lay together; had one wench in the house between them, which they did so admire; the same clothes and cloak etc. between them.

—John Aubrey, Brief Lives

ONE

October to November 1612

Letter from John Fletcher to Francis Beaumont, 31st October 1612.

My dear Damon,

I began work on our Cardenio yesterday with Will, or rather on Will with Cardenio, for I was forced to play the peddler and urge its many virtues and beauties, all but begging him to help me write it: to this state your desertion has brought me. The going was not easy, and he is far from won over yet. The story we so often read to one another with such delight and so dreamed of bringing on the stage, he took as a wary patient will a bitter pill: not to swallow, but to keep in the corner of his mouth, and spit out as soon as the doctor’s back is turned.

We sat in the poet’s nook, chilled to the bone, but the fire was out; darkling, yet no candles were lit; parched, and not a drop to drink; truly it had been a miracle if aught in our imaginations had kindled in a habitation so sober, sombre, and chill. Upon my suggestion we removed to our club-room at the Mermaid, where we warmed our bones by a sea-coal fire aided by two beer-glasses of sack, and talked of friends departed (mainly you, and Ben) and friends dead (mainly Will’s). Master Will Johnson sends his best regards and asks when will you be back with your pots of gold. ’Tis not easy, this having to begin anew; like lying down a scholar and waking up a schoolboy. It took me back to our Philaster days, nay, further back: for I find it hard to think there ever was a time when we two were twain.

But O what remedy. The Winter season is nigh, the Globe will soon close his doors, the Blackfriars open his, you have your wooing to do and your own masque to devise, and I have one more play to complete, which I cannot write on my own. I asked Jack about the contract: he said that as long as the play is ready for the Christmas season, he does not mind if I write it with my dog. I wish we owned one, for I believe his naked paw should prove more instrumental to the task than our friend’s empty glove. I fear me Dick is right: he seems to have lost all his fire for writing, as if his last had gone into the engendering of Caliban and his brood.

But this present burden, which I’ll gladly carry for your sake, dear friend, may prove a benefit in the long run. For who do you think will take his place, when he be gone? Dick loves Ben’s plays, but the bear himself he’ll keep at bay—particularly since Ben tried to school him in the speaking of his verse. Occasion must be seized by the forelock. So what do you say? Shall Olympus by Pelion piled on Ossa be overtopped? What would you rather inherit, a few acres in Kent or the roundness of the Globe?

Joanie bids you be wary of chills, draughts, and wetness, whether from downpours or drabs. She has been much given to moping lately. Yesterday she broke another cup, the one we liked to think of as yours. There will be a new one awaiting your much longed-for return.

Your (fleetingly) faithless shepherd,

Pythias

Conversation between John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. Blackfriars Theatre, London, 30th October 1612.

JF: They find him in the bowels of the mountain, thick-bearded, bare-headed, and exceedingly toasted by the sun. A wild man, leaping barefoot from rock to rock, as nimble as a goat and in apparel all torn: but his rags are holland and his tatters velvet and lace. By this they imagine him to be the owner of the dead mule and the rotting portmanteau they found in the ravine. They learn from some local mountaineers that he arrived some six months ago, demanded of them which was the most secret and inaccessible part of the mountain, and has dwelt therein ever since, spending his days in the roaming of the forests and the procurement of bread when he has his wits about him; in the tearing of his hair and the cursing of his fate when he does not. His meat he sometimes begs of the mountaineers with humble and courteous speech, and receives with tears of gratitude; but when he is taken with his fit of madness he will snatch it with curses and thank it with blows. When the knight and his squire finally come upon him he is in one of his meeker, yet not untroubled, moods, for he approaches with much biting of his lips and bending of his brows, muttering to himself and fixing his eyes on the ground. After eating of what Sancho and his master offer, he agrees to tell his story. His name, he tells them, is Cardenio; his place of birth, one of the finest cities of Andalusia; his lineage noble, his parents rich, and his misfortunes so great as neither birthplace, cradle, nor wealth . . .

WS: Spare me, Jack.

JF: I’m sorry. To be brief, then, this Cardenio loves a maid called Lucinda, has loved her since early childhood, she loves him back and is willing to marry him, they are both equally noble and rich, they have secured her father’s consent . . .

WS: So? What stands in the way of their perfect happiness then?

JF: A trifle merely. The girl’s father would have the suit directly breathed to him; by the lad’s father, that is. This condition seeming entirely reasonable and appropriate—Cardenio sets off toward his father’s rooms full of courage and resolve—which presently begin to drain from him, and drop apace, as if the very earth were sucking the blood from his legs. He knows not why, but he fears that his father’s consent, freely offered when unsought, will be, upon the asking, promptly withdrawn; that he will object, if not to the match itself, to the manner, or the occasion, or the wording of the request; the which his mind feverishly begins to rehearse, answering objections yet unborn and parrying the thrust of unsheathed swords. He will be made an object of scorn, and mocked out of his suit, thus: Consent? Why certainly, boy. If you have her consent, why would I deny you mine? I can give as freely as she. My only scruple, dear son, is this: having secured her consent, how, pray, shall you sequester it from the rest of the world? For thou must needs consent that whosoever shall consent to thee will consent to any other as well.

WS: Jack . . .

JF: Yes?

WS: You’ve been writing already.

JF: Well, you know, a line here and there. When they come of their own accord . . .

WS: So why not keep going?

JF: Will, dear Will, sweet Will, you know I don’t like working on my own. I tried it but once, and you saw the result.

WS:I didn’t, but I heard about it. How about The Tamer Tamed? I thought Frank had no hand in it.

JF: We rough-hewed it out between the two. But the actual writing fell to me, yes.

WS: No wonder it was any good. And how goes his new venture? Found he his perfect little heiress yet?

JF: He did. Far from perfect, he says, but better than writing for the stage.

WS: I can see his point. The question still remains, why me? I am not one for this twinned writing, as you might know from Tom.

JF: Who, Kyd? I’ve seen his Spanish Tragedy. Was your hand in it?

WS: No. That was Ben. He added some stuff, and probably scanned the whole for faulty lines. Ha! Tom Kyd, that was a one-hit wonder if I ever saw one. Hieronimo, go by, go by! No, I meant Tom Middleton. We worked together on Timon. So to speak. He’s fast, and needs the money.

JF: He needs it too much.

WS: True. Surfeit makes your poet slothful and hunger makes him overhasty. The happy mean is in slender but sufficient means. What about Jack Webster? Or Ben?

JF: Ben. You want me to write with Ben. I’d rather be yoked head to tail with an angry bull. Or lie in bed with the fretful porpentine.

WS: You’ve had stranger bedfellows.

JF: Now don’t you get started. Go to, Will, you know I’ve always wanted to do this with you.

WS: Not when Frank was around.

JF: That’s different.

WS: In what way?

JF: In as many as you can fancy and I not tell.

WS: Very well then, perhaps there is something you can tell.

JF: That being?

WS: Did Dick send you?

JF: To what end?

WS: You know. Good old Will’s lamp is spent. We must pour some fresh oil into his veins. New ink for old.

JF: Will . . .

WS: His pen will not rise to the occasion. We’ve a shotten playwright on our hands.

JF: You do me wrong, Will.

WS: You’re not answering my question.

JF: ’Tis I will reap the fruits of this our joint labour, I well know that. I know you don’t need me, Will. But I need you. Of course I didn’t when I had Francis. I’ll freely grant you that. But I don’t have him now. Help me out this once and I promise I’ll not trouble you again.

WS: So?

JF: So what?

WS: So what did his father say?

JF: Whose father?

WS: The what’s-his-name. The lad’s. Does he have a name?

JF: Cardenio.

WS: I mean the father.

JF: Not in the book. I thought we might call him Camillo. O, but you’ve used that, or do I mistake? Where was it?

WS: The Winter’s Tale.

JF: To be sure. Of course we can change it if you don’t want to repeat yourself.

WS: Let me warn you, Jack. I’m far from won yet.

JF: But you will be, as soon as you hear the rest. It’s an amazing book, Will. You should read it yourself. Ben has a copy in his library.

WS: He gave you a free pass, did he? Lucky you.

JF: It was Francis wrenched it from him. ’Twas not easy.

WS: Thanks for the offer, Jack, but I have not your Spanish.

JF: O no, before sailing for France he purchased the translation, you know, the one by Thomas Shelton, newly published by Blount.

WS: Who is this Shelton, by the way? Irish, is he?

JF: All too Irish. His brother was hanged for a traitor in one of the Tyrone rebellions, I forget which. He fled to Spain, and studied there. Ben claims to have met him in the Low Countries, says he plies both sides. But you know Ben. Shall I fetch you his copy then?

WS: Not for the moment, thank you. I’d rather hear it from your lips. Let’s get back to the lad and his father then. Was it as bad as he anticipated?

JF: Worse. For Cardenio finds him standing, holding a letter, the which he hands to him. This letter is from the Duke of those parts, and bids Cardenio presently repair to his court, that he might be companion to the Duke’s elder son. Dumbstruck and confounded he takes his leave: he well knows that he can as little oppose his father’s will as his father can the Duke’s; and even had he the courage, how would he be granted his suit, after refusing his father’s, and the Duke’s? Sorely troubled with such thoughts, he repairs to his beloved’s. Here I see a pretty parting scene. I was thinking we could place her on the upper stage and have Cardenio climb up to the balcony . . .

WS: I may have seen it done before.

JF: Where?

WS: A forgotten play. Romeo and Juliet, by one William Shakespeare.

JF: Yes, I seem to remember it. Let them meet on the main stage then, where we’ll have us many tears, oaths, and protestations, much kissing and holding of hands through cruel iron grates, and off he goes. Next scene, he is at the Duke’s. But, surprise! It is not the elder but the younger son of the Duke, Don Fernando, who takes to him, and soon they are the closest of friends.

WS: How close?

JF: Close enough to have no secrets: at least on Don Fernando’s side, for by the sacred laws of amity he holds it not lawful to keep anything concealed from his friend. Cardenio agrees, in so far as it comes to lending ear. When it comes to giving tongue, he’s more remiss.

WS: A lad most prudent.

JF: This being his idea of frankness between friends, when one is vassal and the other lord—a narrow street at best, that allows traffic to go but one way. He thus learns that Don Fernando is in love with a very beautiful, discreet, and honest country wench, of parents low in birth but in fortunes wondrous rich.

WS: Always a good combination.

JF: He woos her with all the enticements that wit and lust together can devise, but seeing that none will persuade her to surrender her fortified castle, at last he resolves to ask her hand in marriage. Cardenio does his utmost to dissuade him, but seeing all his entreaties fall on deaf ears, he determines to acquaint the Duke with his son’s purpose.

WS: Some friend.

JF: He’s a lad will stand in awe of authority, ’twould seem. Anyway, Don Fernando prevents this by suggesting they repair to Cardenio’s city, telling his father it is to see and price certain horses, and his friend that he is determined to follow his counsel and forget the wench. In this, at least, he did but speak the truth.

WS: Meaning?

JF: He had already enjoyed her.

WS: I’m beginning to like him. Why not make him the hero of the piece?

JF: Is that an offer?

WS: More like a thought.

JF: It sounded like an offer to me.

WS: When I’m making one, I promise you’ll be the first to know.

JF: Thanks. Vouchsafe me the lighting of this match. Will you have any?

WS: I’m no great lover of tobacco, as you well know.

JF: This is your right Trinidado, it beats your Sancto Domingo and your Nicotian any day of the week.

WS: Very good for choking a man and filling him with soot, I’m sure. Pray proceed.

JF: Cardenio is of course delighted, as this not only offers him a way out of his perplexity but allows him speedy passage back to his beloved. So overjoyed is he, that on the way, and following that very same law of friendship that Don Fernando had previously invoked, he tells him all about his love for Lucinda, dilating on her beauty, wit, and discretion, thereby stirring in Don Fernando a great desire to view a damsel so richly endowed.

WS: I think I begin to see where this is going.

JF: By the light of yond same candle you will.

WS: And what candle might that be?

JF: The same one Cardenio, at his friend’s entreaty, holds to Lucinda’s figure and face, while they converse together at their usual window and Don Fernando, a silent witness to their tryst, hides in her garden and gapes, ravished and beside himself. Henceforward he will let no moment pass without making some mention of Lucinda, begs of Cardenio that he should let him read all missives passing between them, and will not suffer the two lovers to meet unless he be privy to their every word and deed. Perusing one of their letters, Don Fernando learns that Cardenio has not yet secured his father’s consent, and offers to speak for him; to the which offer Cardenio readily consents, near to weeping with joy and relief; so, when Don Fernando asks him to repair to the Duke his father’s to obtain some money for the horses he means to purchase, he is filled with joy at being able to repay with so small a favour his friend’s great boon. Back at the Duke’s, Don Fernando’s elder brother bids Cardenio wait at court until the brother can raise the money for the horses, and still he will obey, and still will not suspect, until, on the fourth or fifth day, a man from his city arrives at the door of his chamber, bearing a letter endorsed in a hand he knows all too well, and it is with badly shaking fingers that he manages to open the letter and discover what the whole playhouse, save himself, has guessed by now: as soon as Cardenio was out of the way, Don Fernando approached Lucinda’s father and demanded the maiden for his wife; and the good man had agreed to his demand, in so good earnest that the wedding was to take place before two days. At this, Cardenio feels entitled to depart without requesting the brother’s permission—

WS: How very daring of him. The mouse has sprouted a lion’s mane.

JF: —and, riding like the wind, he arrives at his own city in time to find Lucinda in her wedding weeds, sitting behind their wonted iron grate. She weeps for joy, for her greatest fear was, she says, to depart this world without ever seeing him again. When he asks her what she means by this, she shows him a poniard she carries about her with which, should all her reasons and persuasions fail, she will, by taking her own life, put an end to Don Fernando’s intent. Then she is called away: the bridegroom awaits. Cardenio manages to steal into the house unseen, and, concealing himself behind a piece of tapestry, he makes ready to be witness to either her treachery or her faith. He watches Don Fernando strut into the hall, in his best array; and then Lucinda walks in, richly decked in carnation and white. Never before had she seemed more beautiful to him than now that he is about to lose her to one of his two rivals, his treacherous friend or death.

WS: And he is actually hoping she will stab herself.

JF: It would seem so.

WS: Interesting. And does she?

JF: He closes his eyes for a second and can actually see, vividly, the swift flash of her blade, her silent collapse into the folds of her crumpled dress. So when he hears her dismayed and languishing “I will,” he at first thinks his ears have deceived him, as well as the eyes that open to see Don Fernando slide onto her willing finger the golden ring. At this she falls, as if struck by a bolt from heaven, and when somebody, let it be her father, or some nurse, unclasps her bosom, out falls a folded paper which Don Fernando seizes on and reads, seemingly indifferent to his wife’s fate. Taking advantage of the uproar, Cardenio adventures to steal away, bearing the resolution, if he were perceived, to do such things as all the world should understand the just indignation of his breast.

WS: Of course he would. Too bad his chance always seems to slip away.

JF: Away he goes, unseen and unheard, recovers his mule, rides out of the city, and travels all night. By dawn he reaches the mountains, through which he travels at random for three days, until his mule falls dead under him, to rid itself, he believes, of so vile and unprofitable a burden as he. And in such solitudes he has dwelt ever since. The shepherds that feed their flocks in the mountains, moved by charity, provide his sustenance and musical accompaniment to his sonnets and songs, which he either sings in a plaintive voice or engraves on the rinds of trees—

WS: Tarry a little. Did I hear rightly? Flocks? Shepherds? Sonnets? You are not thinking of writing another pastoral, are you, Jack?

JF: I would not call it a pastoral, not exactly—

WS: I’m out.

JF: Will, listen, it’s just a couple of scenes—one.

WS: No, you listen to me. And look at me. In the eye. No more sonneteering shepherds, or shepherdesses, faithful or otherwise. No more sheep. Not even a strand of wool.

JF: This by the man who wrote that wonderful scene with Perdita, Autolycus, and—

WS: That’s just it. That was a pastoral scene to end all pastoral scenes. Well, at least it was longer than most—except, of course, whole pastoral plays like yours. When I managed to put an end to it I swore, on my mother’s grave, and on my father’s, and on my brothers’—

JF: I’ll tell you what. I’ll do them.

WS: Jack, why do this to yourself?

JF: I know not what you mean.

WS: Who’s going to write the commendatory verses this time? Ben is away, and Frank appears to have other concerns, and it would not look good if I did, being second father to the piece—that, if you manage to talk me into it, your prospects not appearing to be the best since the bleating began.

Ed Thompson: Master Shakespeare . . .

WS: What now?

Ed Thompson: The players are ready, sir.

WS: What is it to me? It was Dick’s turn today. Is he not here?

Ed Thompson. No, sir.

WS: Why, a pox on him! Where is he?

Ed Thompson: I don’t know, sir.

WS: Jack, let me sort this out, and as soon as I do, let us away from here, somewhere far where I can least be found when I am needed most.

* *

Cardenio, which centers on Shakespeare’s mythical lost work, was written originally in English and then translated into Spanish by the author. The novel was published in 2016 by Editorial Edhasa.

* *

Image: Jorge Macchi, “The Speakers Corner”

Dubitation (a selection)

Martín Felipe Castagnet — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 15:44:36 +0000

Martín Gambarotta
Translated by Alexis Almeida

Here, the water is different, the artichoke

leaves are different, everything is

in essence, different,

but he who takes the bottle from the refrigerator

and puts it on the table is

basically the same

You who choose

confrontation, you who choose

confrontation, you

who choose confrontation.

You who choose reverberation, you

who choose reverberation, you who

choose reverberation.

You who choose dubitation, you

who choose dubitation, you who choose

dubitation.

You who choose anomaly, you

who choose anomaly, you who choose

anomaly.

You who measure your actions

milimetrically, you who measure

your actions milimetrically, you

who measure you actions milimetrically.

Fifteen months, three of those months

to decode the rest of the months

your months, which is to say north of those

months there was nothing.

You who are able to materialize, you

who are able to materialize. You who are able

to materialize.

You who don’t understand the benefit

of having spent long hours, entire days

with binoculars watching birds and

recording their names in a notebook.

To know the species

of the bird well

before naming it

is the only honest

way to name

so when he saw

what seemed to be

four wild

parrots in a low

flight between the thin

palms in the plaza

in unison: four green

fighter-bombers

in miniature

zig-zagging

as if to write Tel Aviv

together in the air

I couldn’t

digest well

the experience

The fugitive chess player in an amusement park.

The trichotomy that distorts sight.

It’s not the moment for putting the artichoke

on an immaculate metal table

and it’s not the moment for digressions

about why he didn’t put the artichoke

on the table; it’s not the retractable moment

the regressing moment for everything, the moment

to assign a color to every month

the moment of the flaming black rag

over his head.

If you want

your house to be

Babylon

without a visa

you can’t

sing

if you don’t want

to sit in a

plastic chair

if you sing

they won’t give you a

visa.

He’s not here

he went to buy

unleavened bread

he’s not here

he went to bathe

in the river

he’s not here

he went to rotate

in the void

he’s not here

he went from the cold

into the cold

Image: Delfina Estrada, “Battlefield”

DARK (an overture)

heather — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 16:17:49 +0000

Edgardo Cozarinsky
translated by Cayley Taylor

It starts, always, in the temples, an almost imperceptible throbbing at first, and in the precise moment he acknowledges it, that pulsing starts to grow until he feels as if his head is going to explode and his vision gets cloudy and the distance between him and the objects surrounding him wavers and the arm that he stretches out for the phone is slow in reaching it and the emergency medical service number doesn’t show up in the list though he knows that he’s added it to the phone’s memory. But it’s not just the head. The chest replicates the throbbing of the temples, the thorax narrows and the ribs press down on something that he can only think to call heart, he can’t breathe and the air doesn’t enter his open mouth. He goes out the front door, an impulse that will seem ridiculous to him the next morning, he didn’t want them to find him dead when they battered down the door after not seeing him for days, and he is sitting on the doorstep by the sidewalk when the doctor arrives, meaning that he finally managed to get a hold of the phone number that seemed impossible to find and he was able to speak to ask for help, and in that instant he remembers that on other occasions the electrocardiogram never detected any trace of a heart attack, not even a pre-heart attack, and it’s only months later, when he resigns himself to following his doctor’s order not to call the emergency service again, which only gives him a sleeping pill so strong that it leaves him stupid for part of the following day, only then will he hear about panic attack when he agrees to put himself in the hands of another doctor whose specialization always inspired mistrust, psychologist, psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, how to trust his soul to someone who hasn’t read Dostoevsky or Saint Augustine, but he accepts anyway, agrees to abide by his verdict and submit himself to a psychoactive drug that he will soon abandon to seek and find remedy in words, or rather, in writing them as soon as there’s a sign of crisis, in putting them in a certain order. He resorts to the notebook or the screen and writes something that one or two days later might seem useless to him or, on the contrary, surprise him by revealing that he has descended into a relegated darkness, and he realizes, not without shame, that he had chosen to suppress that darkness, that he never would’ve dared to summon it outside of those nights of terror, in that state that others call normality and which he already understands is the sly censorship to which he has relinquished his daily life.

* *

From Dark (Tusquets 2016). Image: Luna Paiva, “wheel and gun” (2012).

Travelers to Buenos Aires

Lucas Mertehikian — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 17:50:27 +0000

Lucas Mertehikian
translated by Jennifer Croft

The history of the Americas has always been inseparable from the notion of travel, and Argentina is no exception to this rule. In fact, the history of Argentina’s literature can only be understood in connection with the men and women who arrived at its shores from far-off lands and wrote about that very experience.

No sooner had Argentina declared its independence than it began to see travelers—many of them from Great Britain—looking to try their luck and explore the commercial prospects of the new nation. The country’s vast plans captivated this multitude of newcomers who, with their aesthetic sensibilities that tended to fall somewhere in between the naturalism and the romanticism of the era, documented this astonishment in numerous books.

Adolfo Prieto has suggested that it was those books that led the first writers of the young republic—like Sarmiento, Alberdi, Mármol—to the landscape that would become the foundations of Argentine literature. Then, in the twentieth century, a new breed of celebrity travelers, like José Ortega y Gasset, made their way to Argentina to celebrate the nation’s centennial in 1910 and didn’t stop coming after that. Those “cultural travelers,” as they’ve been called by Gonzalo Aguilar and Mariano Siskind, constitute a cornerstone of early-twentieth century literature in Argentina. The local intellectual and artistic circles eagerly awaited them and heatedly debated both them and their works, all the while hoping they’d be able to provide an answer to the same question Argentina’s earliest authors had asked themselves: what are Argentines?

Between those periods, in the 1920s, there was also another type of traveler to Buenos Aires, coming from Europe and the United States. Neither trailblazers nor celebrities, though some enjoyed a certain notoriety in their home countries. They were not anticipated by the Argentines with any particular eagerness, nor given a particularly warm welcome.

Perhaps because of this, with only a few exceptions, their writing has yet to be translated into Spanish. This series from The Buenos Aires Review aims to revive four of the authors from this in-between category and resuscitate their writings on Argentina: John Foster Fraser, Gordon Ross, Katherine Dreier and John Alexander Hammerton, in that order. Joining these four is Jules Huret, who was translated from French into Spanish at the time by Guatemalan writer Enrique Gómez Carrillo, but these translations have been widely neglected until now.

The chronicles we’ll be presenting here were published between 1914 and 1920. We are interested less in establishing a core Argentine identity than we are in enriching this question with the potency of history that the rereading of these texts, a hundred years after their original publication, demands be taken into account. What, in other words, have Argentines become?

Read the first entry in the series

Read the second entry in the series

The Amazing Argentine [excerpt]

Lucas Mertehikian — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 17:25:53 +0000

John Foster Fraser

Lucas Mertehikian

translated by Jennifer Croft

In 1899, Scottish writer John Foster Fraser (1868-1936) made a name for himself in Great Britain with his book Round the World on a Wheel, the result of a bicycle trip made with two friends across over ten thousand miles of Europe, Asia and the United States. Unlike other books dedicated to travel, Foster Fraser’s book was not “about anthropology or biology or archaeology.” He made no claims to studying the places he went—only claims to fame: “We took this trip round the world on bicycles because we are more or less conceited, like to be talked about, and see our names in the newspapers,” he states in the preface.

And it worked: over the course of the next few decades, Foster Fraser traveled to and wrote about young countries like Canada (Canada As It Is) and Australia (Australia: The Making of a Nation), as well as histories with long and storied traditions, such as Russia (Red Russia) and the nations of northern Africa (The Land of Veiled Women). “Sir John, who was born in Edinburgh, spent almost the whole of his adult life in search of variety,” wrote The Glasgow Herald in his obituary, from June 8, 1936.

It may well have been this same search that led Foster Fraser to Argentina, where, in 1914, he wrote his second-to-last book: The Amazing Argentine: A New Land of Enterprise. Variety, after all, was already in the ethnic composition of his fellow passengers on the ship to Buenos Aires: wealthy Argentines returning from Europe, poor Spanish and Italian immigrants, English businessmen. “South America is not the land of the future. It is the land of to-day,” he writes. The trails blazed by European travelers in the first half of the nineteenth century in the exploration of fields and mines in the Andes had fallen into disuse—but there were now new paths.

Upon his arrival, Foster Fraser encountered a city in which an accelerated capitalist rhythm coexisted alongside archaic gender biases, something Beatriz Sarlo has described as part of Buenos Aires peripheral modernity. Perhaps his voyages around Australia and the Middle East had prepared him for his trip to Buenos Aires, a city whose contradictions he found, as he will note below, strangely fascinating.

Some Aspects of Buenos Aires

John Foster Fraser

The Argentines call their city of Buenos Aires the Paris of the southern hemisphere. It has a population nearing a million and a half, which is greater than that of any other town below the line of the Equator. The people promise that in time it will overtake London.

You insult an Argentine if you mix him up with Chilians, Brazilians, and other South Americans. He does not thank you for being reminded his father sailed from Italy, or his grandfather from Spain. He has no affection for any old land from which his sires came. The beginning of the world for Argentina was in May, 1810, when the Republic was set up.

He has no pride of historic race. When he makes money and visits Europe it is not to find the ancestral home in Spain or Italy. It is to have a good time in Paris. When he takes his family to Paris it is not to spend three, five, or six months. It is to spend three, five, or six hundred thousand pesos —and the value of a peso is one shilling and eightpence. When the pesos have flown he returns to Argentina and makes more.

The Argentines are a dignified people. They accept the English because in round figures five hundred millions of British capital in gold have aided in developing the country. They dislike the citizen of the United States because the big brother Republic of the north patronises them, and they need nobody’s help. They have a contempt for all other Latins beneath the Isthmus of Panama, particularly the Brazilians. They are conscious of their own qualities.

And the visitor blinks, and rubs his eyes, and admits the wonders of Argentina. If his acquaintance with geography is casual he has shrugged his shoulders at South American Republics, where they have revolutions every six weeks, and where tawny Spaniards in quaint costumes drive mules and die from difference of opinion with other Spaniards.

Then he goes to “BA” —the familiar description of Buenos Aires— and he finds he has landed in a rampantly modem American-cum-European city. There is none of the sloth of the Southern, no checking of business between noon and three to pass in siestas.

It is a busy city. The port is thronged with shipping, mostly British. High-shouldered elevators stick out long tongues, and streams of wheat, grown on the plains of the interior, pour food for Europe into the holds. Trucks of cattle grunt through the noisy railway yards. There are huge killing establishments, and animals go to their death by the many thousand every day with a celerity which would awaken a Chicagoan. There are mighty avenues of chilled and frozen meat. Labour-saving machinery carries it on board the steamers which hasten across the Atlantic, carrying cheap beef to the London and Liverpool markets. Commerce is conducted on the latest scientific lines. The North Americans have nobbled the meat trade, and the Jews have control of the wheat market.

Buenos Aires is the mart where the produce of the rich back-lands is bartered. It levies a heavy toll. The most imposing business buildings are the banks —national banks, British, German, French, Spanish, and Italian banks. In and about Reconquista are these banks, ever busy. Near by are the rival shipping offices, a glut of them. The offices of the great railway companies are enormous. Widespreading premises exhibit the latest and best agricultural machinery that Lincolnshire and Illinois can produce. There is the hustle of commerce. The streets are as narrow and as crowded and as vital as within the City of London. There is earnestness about the men.

The Argentine is sombre in manner. He dresses in conventional black. A light waistcoat, a gay tie or fancy socks, is bad form. You cannot tell the difference between a millionaire and one of his clerks, except that the former has an expensive motor-car and the latter hires a taxi or a victoria, or travels by electric tramcar. At every corner you see evidence of prosperity, of successful money-making. And money speaks in BA as loudly as it does in New York.

Folk of the Saxon breed tend to scoff at the decadence of the Latin race. But there is something revivifying in the transplanting of a people. We have evidence in our own colonies. The man of Spanish descent in the Argentine is not always the spry fellow he thinks himself; but he has dropped the cloak of sluggishness which enwraps Spain. He is often rich; he lives in a gorgeous residence; his extravagances are beyond those of a Russian archduke. He is polite and hospitable.

But the wealthy Spanish Argentine is not the creator of his own wealth. I heard of only one case of a Spanish Argentine owing his great fortune to commercial enterprise. The fortunes of most of these Argentines come from land. Their grandfathers got immense areas by the easiest means. Properties were so enormous that extent was not reckoned in acres, or even square miles, but by leagues. But a hundred leagues, however good for cattle or sheep, or wheat growing —what was its value a couple of hundred miles from a port? Then came British railways. They pierced the prairies. The land bounded in value, tenfold, a thousandfold. Other people came in; first shrewd Scotsmen; then industrious Italians; then Englishmen bent on becoming estancieros. Their children are Argentines. But the mighty fortunes are mostly in the possession of the early Argentines —those who were settled fifty and more years ago. They have sat still and seen their land blossom in value. They pay no income tax; there is no tax on unearned increment. Mr. Lloyd George was once in the Argentine, associated with a land development company. That, however, is another story.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants pour into the Republic every year. They come from every land on earth. Mostly do they come from Spain and Italy. Italy provides the greatest number, and splendid colonists they are. Though the language will always be Spanish, the race is rapidly becoming Italianised. There is a commingling of the sterner stuff from Europe. So in this rich land —rivalling Canada and Australia in productiveness— there is being blended a new people, keen, alert, successful, ostentatious, pagan —a people that has a destiny and knows it.

The Argentines are town proud. You are not in Buenos Aires a couple of days before you are bombarded with the inquiry, “Don’t you think this is a beautiful city?”. It is not that; but it is an interesting city.

In the oldest quarters the streets are narrow, after the Spanish style. So narrow are they that, with electric cars jingling along them, vehicles are allowed to journey only one way. To reach a shop by carriage it is sometimes necessary, to drive along three and a half sides of a block of buildings. Funny little policemen, brown faced, blue clad, and with white gaiters and white wands, direct the traffic. In the Florida —the Bond Street of BA— all wheeled traffic is prohibited between the hours of four and seven in the afternoon, so that shoppers may have an easier way.

Most of the streets are called after Argentine provinces, or neighbouring republics, or national heroes, or some politician or rich man who can influence the authorities. When a popular man has lost his popularity the remnant of his fame is obliterated by the street called after him being named after someone else. It is as though the Government at home decided to change Victoria Street, Westminster, into the Avenida Asquith, with the prospect of its being altered later on to the Calle Bonar Law.

Wide plazas decorate the city. Vegetation is luxuriant, and statues are numerous. The Plaza Mayo is not called after an Irish peer, but after the month of May, 1810. The shops are as big as those in London. Argentina manufactures practically nothing, and all the lovely things have to be imported from Europe. The hotels are imitations of those in Paris. The restaurants are on a par with the best we have in London. A Viennese band plays whilst you have Russian caviare and the waiter is asking your choice in champagne. But everything is expensive. A man needs three times the salary in Buenos Aires to live the same way he would live in London. If you calculate exchange rates you go mad. It is best to count the peso (1s 8d) as a shilling, and then remember that you are spending your shilling in South America, where things are dear. You can get a modest luncheon for 10s; but you will pay 2s for a bottle of beer, and 8s 6d for a cigar worth smoking.

Yet nobody minds. Immense sums are being spent on improving the city. It is built on the American T-square plan. But it is to be subjected to the plan of Haussmann, with great tree-girt avenues radiating diagonally from the Plaza Mayo. An underground railway, honeycombing beneath the town, is in rapid construction. The railways have a great suburban traffic, and are being electrified. There are British colonies at Belgrano and Hurlingham, and you have a choice of three golf courses. In the summer months —December, January, and February— there is river life on the Tigre, the Thames of the Argentine. A charming spot is Palermo, a combination of Hyde Park and the Bois de Boulogne —open sweeps and charming trees, a double boulevard with statues and commemorative marbles in the middle, well-cared-for gardens, radiant flowers and the band playing.

A drive through Palermo at the fashionable hour causes one to gasp at the thought that one is six thousand miles from Europe. Nowhere in the world have I seen such a display of expensive motor-cars, thousands of them. Ostentation is one of the stars of life in the Argentine. Appearances count for everything. You must have a motor-car, even though you have not the money to pay for it, and you owe the landlord of your flat a year’s rent. The ladies are exquisitely gowned, but they have not the vivacity of the French women nor their daring in dress. There is a demureness, a restraint which reminds one that the atmosphere of far-away Castile is still upon them.

On Sundays and Thursdays there are races at Palermo. The price Argentines pay for horseflesh has become a proverb. It is a good race-course. We have nothing in England, neither at Epsom, Ascot, nor Goodwood, so magnificent as the grand stand. It is a glorified royal box. The restaurant is like the Ritz dining-room. Everybody dresses as they would at Ascot. There are no bookmakers. The totalisator is used. Betting is officially conducted by the Jockey Club, and there is constant announcement of the amount of money put on the horses. Those who have backed the winners share the spoil, less ten per cent. As this ten per cent, is deducted from the total amount put on each race, the income of the Jockey Club runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds. So the Club maintains a good racecourse, offers capital prizes, has a house in BA —undoubtedly the most palatial club-house in the southern world— and distributes the remainder amongst the hospitals. The income of the Jockey Club is so large it is really embarrassing. The members are proceeding to build an Aladdin’s palace of super-gorgeousness.

But at the races at Palermo I noticed that no ladies attended, except in the members’ enclosure. Even there they did not mingle with the men-folk. There was no mirth, such as we are used to in Europe. They kept themselves to little groups. Moving from wonder to wonder, I was present at a gala performance at the Colon Theatre. I have seen all the great theatres in the world, and this is the loveliest —a harmony of rose and gold. The audience was as fashionably dressed as at the opera in London, though I missed the dazzling display of diamonds which had been promised. Most of the audience were ladies; there were boxes of them, and most of the men were in the stalls. There was one gallery reserved for women.

I began to discern a strange Orientalism in the relations between the sexes. The Argentine women are amongst the best mothers in the world. But there is practically none of the good fellowship between young fellows and young girls which is so happy a feature of our English life. For a man and a woman to take a walk together would shock the proprieties. There are brilliant receptions, but dinner parties, as we know them, are rare. An Argentine seldom introduces a friend to his wife. Except amongst the poorest a woman scarcely ever goes into the streets alone. If she does she runs risk of being insulted. There are Argentines, who would be offended if refused the name of gentlemen, who think it excellent sport to walk in the Florida in the evening and mutter obscenities to every unprotected woman who passes. Buenos Aires is the most immoral city in the world. So the Argentine guards his women-folk from contact with other men. His attitude is a relic of the days when the Moors had possession of Spain.

I have called Buenos Aires a pagan city. So it is. The men are frankly irreligious. In conversation I have been told of the tolerance to all religions. What is really meant is indifference to any religion.

Money-making and flamboyant display —these are the gods which are worshipped. The houses in the wealthier districts are exotic in architecture. I remember driving along the Avenida Alvear, a street of palaces, reminiscent of the Grand Canal at Venice if it were a roadway. But the fine stone blocks are nothing but stucco. The ornamentation, the floral decorations, are not carved stone; they are stucco. Imitation, pretense, showiness, the flaunting of wealth, are everywhere.

Yet this city, which has grown in a generation on the muddy flats by the side of the muddy Parana River, has something that is weird in its fascination.

from The Amazing Argentine. A New Land of Enterprise. London, Cassell and Company, 1914.

On Luna Paiva’s “Memorias Herméticas”

heather — Sat, 22 Aug 2015 12:38:35 +0000

Andrew Berardini

Even if the meaning of ancient totems disappeared, their meaningfulness has not. A human hand altering nature with purpose, these ancient stacks of stones mark a path or honor a god, measure the stars or memorialize war. We can’t really know for sure. Stand in the shadow of a megalith and you feel its force, an ancient energy still at work, blunted by our ignorance but no less powerful in its shifted mass. We know it means something important, even if we’ll never know precisely what. In stone cairns scattered across a planet, we find evidence of our ancestors, a simple shape we still make in the few wildernesses we have left. It is a basis of communication and expression with material, the beginning of sculpture.

Here these sculptures stacked by Luna Paiva angle with their own obscure and powerful spirit. Much like their ancient inspiration, her cairns do not easily reveal their secrets. We can glean some history of humans, the subtle properties of metals at work, how they learned to shape them. We can feel their rough and towering presence. Their mystery is their power.

Cast in bronze, Luna’s shimmering totems take on the aura of their material. Tooled and statued, formed and fetished, the casters of idols and statues prefer bronze for its particular properties. Composed of copper and usually tin, the ductile and enduring bronze when setting expands just slightly to fill a mold’s finest details. It can be poured into grand and dynamic poses. The finish of patinas can make that metal turn a hundred chemical colors, transform cold hard metal into supple flesh with fresh bruises and stained blood, give the static statue the illusion of shifting movement and coiled animal grace. A perfect material to shape and tribute the gods.

The cults are gone, the idols desecrated. Very few of the most beautiful of the ancient bronzes survive. The body of the god boiled into weapons and money. So go all religions. Many a bronze crucifix has melted into the belly of a cannon, the pocket of a priest. But the metal of many uses persists and is used again, bending to each new need. And just as easily bent back.

Bronze’s primary component, copper still moves the flows of energy across continents, linking house to house, station to station. A bringer of Luciferian light, lace it together into the electrical grid and this metal illuminates modern life, turning shadowy cities into bejeweled circuitboards. This power makes Aphrodite’s element essential for modernity and more than one landscape has been despoiled to satisfy a mechanized world’s gluttonous and irreparable desire for more. Ever a medium to what lies beyond, a pure attraction of energy across space and time that cannot linger, tensile and conductive, copper bends and carries but does not keep. The lust that shivers through it dissipates in consummation with other metals, but alloyed it births the powerful bronze and the all the expressions that artists can shape with it. Bronze endures. The burnished brown whispers origins we’ve since forgotten, but that survive in this alloy.

As history passes into legend and myth before its forgotten, only a few artifacts remain to teach us the tales of our ancestors and how we came to be. In these ancient structures renewed, Luna entices us to try and follow the mysterious trajectory that brought us from there to here, and even maybe further yet.

* *

“Memorias herméticas” is currently on view at Gallery SlyZmud in Buenos Aires.

Images: Javier Agustín Rojas for SlyZmud

Edgardo Cozarinsky

heather — Tue, 27 May 2014 04:56:47 +0000

Translated by Victoria Lampard and Heather Cleary

From “Ultramarina,” a contemporary opera by Marcelo Lombardero, with music by Pablo Mainetti and a libretto by Edgardo Cozarinsky, based on his novel “El rufián moldavo” (Emecé 2004). “Ultramarina” premiered in “Hasta Trilce” in April 2014. The excerpt that follows is a play on tango kitsch sung by a prostitute named Perla.

A CLEAN SLATE

If I could spit out all the kisses
That tainted my young lips…

If I could wash away the scratch of
of all those god-forsaken sheets…

If I could wipe away the caresses
that consumed my skin, then I could love you.

Oh how I wish you were my first,
the one who lied to me a thousand times.

(Does it matter? It is a man’s way to lie
to a woman, and love her all the same),

How I wish you could see me as I once was,
and I could give myself to you as though you were my first.

How I wish, for you, I once again had
A body that you could please,

I know: there is no hope
for a clean slate, a fresh start

A clean slate, a fresh start,
It is too late, I know.

Some nights I dream it could still happen…
I dream that not all is lost.

Something, I feel, still beats inside me,
Something in me lives on…

It scares me to say it, even to think it:
Could this something be my heart?

* *

Image: Pola Oloixarac

Interview with Roberto Jacoby

admin — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 20:00:19 +0000

by Reinaldo Laddaga
translation by Jane Brodie

Ana Longoni put it so well that I will just copy a passage from her introduction to essays by Roberto Jacoby and other documents related to his work collected in an indispensable book published on the occasion of El deseo nace del derrumbe,the Roberto Jacoby retrospective held a few years ago at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid. It says:

It’s not easy to come up with even one “avant-garde scene” in Argentine art since the sixties that did not have him at the forefront. RJ has been at the heart (or in the brain?) of countless milestones (many of them now mythical) of Argentine culture and art from the last half century. The list is impressive: in 1966, the Arte de los Medios group, now recognized internationally as the beginning of what is called “global conceptualism”; in 1967, Be at Beat Beatles, an event that took place at the Instituto Di Tella where a number of founders of the Argentine rock music movement met; in 1968, Tucumán Arde, a collective action carried out by the Argentine avant-garde in conjunction with the largest nationwide union organization; in 1969, the anti-magazine Sobre, an experiment in agitation and propaganda in times of repression; in 1969, CICSO (Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias Sociales), a group of Marxist sociologists researching the Cordobazo¹ and growing political violence; in the early 70s, the cultural supplement to the newspaper La Opinión (where RJ worked with Juan Gelman, Enrique Raab, Paco Urondo, and other important writers) and the newspaper Nuevo Hombre, which—after its first director, Silvio Frondizi, was murdered by para-police forces—was produced largely in hiding; in the 80s, the legendary pop-rock band Virus until its leader and singer, Federico Moura, died of AIDS, and the cultural movement that began with the Body Art festival, and the Club Eros nomad parties; in the 90s, the group of artists connected to the Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas; starting in the late 90s, a number of different micro-societies and networks of artists and non-artists, beginning with Bola de Nieve, followed by Chacra99 the following summer , gaining strength with Proyecto Venus from 2001 to 2006, continuing with 101 issues of the magazine ramona² published over the course of ten years, and now the Centro de Investigaciones Artísticas, an artist-run platform for education and debate that is planning to open a center in the Centro Penitenciario de Devoto (the largest jail in the city of Buenos Aires); participation in the Argentine Brigade for Dilma, thirty-some artists and intellectuals who took a position on the Brazilian elections at the 2010 São Paulo Biennial …

All of that: art, music, politics, sociology. And all of it together in a perfectly original constellation always joined by the determination to interrogate, in specific conditions, a certain time and place and its workings, ways of living and experiencing together, zones of light and darkness that come into being when mutable individuals cross paths. Making connections visible and, by making them visible, giving them forms that we would not have been able to anticipate otherwise: that passion runs through the constellation of activities that Roberto Jacoby has persistently undertaken. That’s why it would make little sense to talk about his “work” as if it could be separated from the universe of connections that makes up the trajectory of his experience. This conversation in no way attempts to do that.

Roberto was recently visiting New York with Kiwi Sainz, who has been his constant collaborator for decades. The conversation took place at my house after a hilarious lunch.

Reinaldo Laddaga – Not long ago, Roberto, I was reading your book, and I noticed something that comes up time and again in your interviews and texts: the defense of what you call “the strategy of joy.” You often present that strategy as a response to a certain Argentine reality that you describe as problematic, traumatic, dark. The book made me think of a poem by Borges where, speaking of his relationship to Buenos Aires, he says, “we are not joined by love, but fear.” Your work is so deeply bound to Argentina… Is there an element of fear in that connection?

Roberto Jacoby – Maybe… Yes, that’s right! Though, at least consciously, it is more related to complaining than to fear, those words that you hear from the time you are a kid: “You can’t get anywhere here,”“What are you going to do that for if they’re not going to let you?,”“No one’s going to notice.” I think I’m responding more to that tango-like vision of things. Of course, there was no lack of fear, quite the contrary. And in the early eighties, in connection to Virus, the strategy of joy was directly tied to a superabundance of fear. At that time, I first understood how wonderful it was that there were people dancing and making such joyous music in a basement in the San Telmo section of the city at eleven at night—of course, I mean the San Telmo of back then, not today’s San Telmo. I realized that that’s infectious… It’s like when it’s really hot out and you go somewhere cool and stay for a while, and then when you leave that cool feeling stays with you for a bit. Joy keeps you going when you are in situations steeped in terror, which we had been in, right? The entire population was immersed in terror. I started to realize that joy was political, that making music, singing and dancing were political. At that time, I was working on a very long essay, a research project that I did not finish until 85, and I read some texts that confirmed that idea. One text by Canetti, for example, says that, to his mind, there is nothing more absurd than being in a concert hall: people sitting there, lined up in rows and columns, as if tied to their seats, listening to music even though there is nothing more alien to music than forcing the body to stay still. Music is actually a product of the body and, at the same time, the body moves to the rhythm of music. In Virus’s second album, the idea of not being seated while listening was very explicit, even though what was called “rock” in Argentina was listened to sitting down, like at a classical music concert. So we went against that tendency. What we set out to do at that time was get rid of the seats.

RL – I always have the impression that the reconstruction of the Argentine cultural scene of the late seventies and early eighties is not very precise, especially in the United States. It does not really seem to reflect just how rich what was going on then really was. In the seventies you left the art scene, to a certain extent, and when you came back in the eighties you—unlike most of the people who had come back to the visual arts—were not painting. What led to you to return to art?

RJ – When I left the visual art scene in 68 or 69, I started doing social research, working on conflict theory. My turn away from art was pretty radical. I felt that the art scene had run its course and there was nothing else to do there. It wasn’t limited to a feeling that “such and such an institution, the Di Tella, for instance, is a mess,” or “exhibitions are being censored, so…” Even if there had been no censorship, even if the Di Tella had been at its peak, it was all over as far as I was concerned.

RL – Did you believe art had lost its ability to make a greater cultural impact?

RJ – Partly yes, but it was also worn out intellectually. I had the feeling that we had reached the limits of what could be thought. In the group I was in with Masotta,³ the media group, we had reached a sort of maximum degree of abstraction. On the one hand, I felt that Pop art and Conceptualism, as well as media art, no longer had much to say. On the other, the political situation compelled me to work in that area. I didn’t feel the impulse to join the armed struggle or to be a radical working in the community, but to be a researcher. I decided to get involved in the Center for Research in the Social Sciences, which was supposedly going to help bring about a closer relationship between action and knowledge. But you’re right: there is still no research that really grasps the richness and complexity of what was going on in those years, and even during the dictatorship, right? More has been done about what happened towards the end of the dictatorship. More has been said about Teatro Abierto,⁴ for instance.

RL – There is, outside Argentina, a somewhat caricature-like image of what social and cultural life was like under the dictatorship, one that has little to do with the cultural reality of the country at that time, as is evidenced by everything that surfaced with the return to democracy. It was at that time that you got involved in the pop music scene, and from then on your connection to pop music has been very close. You circulate in the space between pop music and the visual arts. I don’t remember if you were a regular at Café Einstein⁵ in those years.

RJ – I was…

RL – Because the house band at Café Einstein was Sumo,⁶ right?

RJ – Yes, but Sumo was just one of the bands that played there. All kinds of things went on at Einstein. The stuff that Chabán was doing, the performances, Daniel Melero, Vivi Tellas… all that satirical stuff. It was not strictly rock.

RL – And, surprisingly, I think the underlying sensibility of that time still makes itself felt on the Argentine cultural scene. I don’t know if you have the sense as well that, in terms of strategy and sensibility, there is a very strong and unbroken connection between what was going on in the underground cultural scene of the early eighties and what’s going on now. I think there is continuity between, let’s say, Café Einstein and Belleza y Felicidad⁷ in the nineties.

RJ – I would say it’s more a question of affinity than of continuity: people working today see themselves in Belleza, and Belleza saw itself in Rojas,⁸ and Rojas saw itself in Einstein, and so on. A sort of relay race, where the legacy is passed from one runner to the next.

RL – What, in your view, have been the most powerful moments, the turning points, the moments of greatest cultural upheaval, in Argentina in recent decades? Because your interventions, the way you come in and out of the public scene, always seem tied to a strategic vision: it’s as if when you sense that something special is going on you get involved.

RJ – From the outside, it seems a bit more rational than it really is. It’s always a question of groups of friends, actually. We mentioned the return to democracy. And later—from 89 to 1993 or 94, more or less—it was Rojas, with Pablo Suárez, Gordín, Harte, people that I knew from elsewhere (not from Rojas). (I met Pablo, of course, in the sixties, and he was the person most important to getting me involved in the visual arts). But it’s really a question of affinity, friendships that pull people together. I wasn’t a big part of Rojas, for instance. I may have participated in two shows there, that’s it.

Anyway, I think that whole scene came to an end in 94, more or less. That goes for the nightclubs as well.

KS - Maybe the end was the show “Algunos artistas”⁹… which was in 94, right? No, in 1992. The enshrinement of Rojas at Recoleta…

RJ – The Age of Communication closed in 1993 or 94 as well. That was the nightclub that hung on after all the others (Morocco, for example) had become really commercial. It was run by Juan Calcarami, and his group had a more mystical vibe. It was a place for artists. Whether or not an institution or organization is run by artists has a huge impact on what it’s like. That’s been proven time and again, right? A bar run by Sergio De Loof is not the same as a bar run by some bartender. Anything and everything happened at Juan Calcarami’s club: there were even places to sleep, hanging gardens, a library area, and an area where designer clothing was sold…

It closed and there was a hiatus… The cultural scene moved elsewhere. Or it lost steam, in a way, or survived but ceased to be very interesting. Nothing new was happening. Rojas closed and many of the artists who had shown there went on to show at private galleries.

RJ – What did emerge at that time, in around 96, was HIJOS,¹⁰ and I think that was one of the milestones in the cultural scene. Because of their age at the time (they were around twenty), HIJOS began to effect an enormous change in the politics of daily life compared to Madres and Abuelas.¹¹ One of the most obvious things is their relationship with homosexuality and transvestites. If you introduced Hebe de Bonafini¹² or Carlotto¹³ to a transvestite in the eighties, they would have been horrified. HIJOS started to make things happen; they would get together at someone’s house and smoke pot, do everything that young people do. And that led human rights organizations and the most progressive political parties to accept a cultural change or revolution and that, I think, was very important. New groups of radical or activist artists began to emerge between 96 and 2000, until 2004, 2005, when they faced a crisis of institutionalization as well. Those groups started getting invited all over the place, to the Venice Biennale and so forth, and they ended up confused and began fighting amongst themselves, which is nothing new (that’s what always happens). Meanwhile, in the late nineties, another movement began which revolved around Fernanda Laguna and Cecilia Pavón, and their venue Belleza y Felicidad.

RL – Did you work with Fernanda Laguna and Cecilia Pavón when they were starting Belleza y Felicidad?

RJ – No, when they were putting Belleza y Felicidad together (November or December of 99, I mean, of 98) I was working on Bola de Nieve¹⁴ and Chacra 99, an artists’ residency. I was not a friend of Fernanda’s, I didn’t invite her to the residency because I didn’t know her. I did know Pablo Peréz, though, who was friends with Fernanda, and he was at Chacra 99. Another cluster of intercrossing artistic energies formed there. Some people had been around for a while, but there were a great many new people as well.

RL – There was no single nightclub or bar associated with the underground scene at that time, the way Bolivia had been, was there? Am I right that the scene that took shape in 99 was not associated with nightlife the way earlier scenes had been?

KS – That change took place around the world. There were more parties at people’s houses. Belleza was a place where DJs would get together, Panasonic played there. During the day or early in the evening, the dance club would be in the gallery then, later, you would go to clubs. Or sometimes take over places.

You didn’t have to wait until night fell for the party to begin.

RL – And in what exact year did Proyecto Venus¹⁵ begin?

RJ –In 2001, we began something called Plácidos Domingos. There were twelve Plácidos Domingos, which were supposed to be a sort of intellectual and theoretical preparation for what would become Proyecto Venus. I think it was in August 2001 that we started with the computer part, which was a real mess. At that time, computer technology was a lot of trouble… But we found great people who could handle it… We set up at my house. After a while, I had to move.

RL – And your apartment became Fundación START (Sociedad, Tecnología y Arte).¹⁶

RJ – It became Fundación START and housed the office, people, programmers. The Proyecto Venus website (initially www.proyectovenus.org and later www.proyectov.org) was more or less ready to go in March. The bills had been printed, and so the currency was launched in March as well. Everything that had happened on December 19 and 20, 2001¹⁷ was still very fresh. I had an idea about how to generate more interest in joining the project: I found a place where I could buy pretty good wine really cheap, and so I bought two hundred bottles (we kept them under the stage at START); I also got 750 grams of pot that we sold in the Venus currency. That was like the gold standard [laughter]; they say there always has to be something to back up a currency. What backs up money? In our case, it was wine and pot, convertible currency [laughter]… If at a certain point you wanted to change in your bills, you could go and buy some pot.

RJ – The myth was so powerful that years later people would ask me if I could get them some pot [laughter]. “No, that was just for the first two months.” A fairly bizarre economy materialized around a currency with backing, which is unheard of: no currency is backed by anything at all.

RL – So the late nineties, early 2000s, was another powerful moment, another juncture where energies converged.

RJ - Argentina had never been so good.

RJ –The year 2001, when the country seemed to be falling apart, was one of the most interesting moments.

The strange thing is it began in the art world, right? I mean, the things we were doing did not begin in 2001. We didn’t say, “OK, the country is coming apart at the seams, it’s the end of the world, so let’s do something.” I don’t want to repeat that old idea that artists can see what’s going to happen, that they are prophetic, but for some reason, we’re not sure why…

RL – Has there been a moment like that since?

RJ – I don’t know… I don’t think so…

KS – Well, what about what Néstor and Cristina (Kirchner) were able to generate, a different sort of connection with and between young people.

RL – And what’s that?

RJ – It really took off when Néstor died.

It started with people crying desperately in the street. But that turned into joy at a certain point, and then slogans appeared spontaneously in a way I’d never seen before.

RL – And has that had a palpable impact on the more restricted space of the art world?

RJ – Not directly or immediately. There were a number of distinct moments… One was when, in response to the resistance of the large agro-exporters to Resolution 125,¹⁸ an organization called Agrupación de Artistas Visuales con Cristina was started, and that is odd: I can’t remember any time when there was a group of visual artists in support of anyone, not even the Montoneros.¹⁹ And then there were initiatives geared to political action. Not long ago, a group called Artistas Organizados was formed in opposition to certain policies of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires. For a long time, they held meetings and assemblies, made statements, studied issues. Everyone was involved. That had never happened before either. But I know you aren’t asking about this sort of thing, but about repercussions in the art world itself. The question of who makes decisions in the art world was formulated more explicitly; it is never artists. This has implications in other areas, like the number of galleries directed by artists, the number of artist-run projects around (dozens). All of this is, to some extent, an outgrowth of things that happened in the early 2000s. Artists opening their own gallery, their own museum, their own academy. There are artists who “copy” the Centro de Investigaciones Artisticas, who come up with their own educational or teaching structure, their own places of reflection.

RL – I want to know what you think about something. In the eighties, a great deal of the new aesthetic was defined in opposition to the cult of the national and a certain notion of the people, which we associated with the old left, the universe of tango bars, etc. But that contrast no longer seems particularly relevant. Or is it?

RJ – I think it’s gotten more complicated. On a cultural level, the policy of a broad Latin American alliance, for instance, has changed everything, all the different perspectives, a great deal. The national and the idea of the people and its culture have become regional, not confined to one country: Caetano Veloso sings Mercedes Sosa; contemporary music is composed on the basis of native chants. At the same time, reclaiming native cultures has great ideological weight not just amongst supporters of the government, but with the opposition as well. Internationally, the role of New York is not what it once was, let alone Paris (I haven’t heard anyone talk about Paris for twenty years)… Everyone goes to biennials in Indonesia, residencies in Thailand… In this context, I think that the national and the idea of the people and its culture mean something else, because Argentina’s position in the world is different, the world itself is different: it’s more polycentric. Artists are no longer combing over Art Forum or Art International. Everyone is concentrated on their own thing and on connections made on the Internet. I think the contrast you mentioned has been done away with; it is no longer relevant.

RL – You were saying that artists study… and that’s true: artists study more these days. There are more studio classes, schools, institutions. Does that mean that in Argentina being an artist is seen as a viable career?

RJ – Yes. I mean, they are kidding themselves [laughter], but that’s what they think. Another strange thing is that the social background of artists has changed. There are more young artists from families that can support them financially as they pursue the idea of being an artist, which was not the case when we were young. You had to make a living anyway you could. There was no way you could make a living as an artist, but that didn’t mean you stopped being an artist.

RL – Exactly, and that is a major change in the identity of the artist: suddenly, being an artist is a viable career option. I want to get back to something, though: it seems like you have never felt a pressing need to identify as an artist, in fact the lack of that identification is one of the things that seems to make your work possible. Is that right?

RJ – That’s right. I have never felt the need to identify as an artist. In the sixties we used that term, but sort of jokingly (I mean amongst the smaller group, with Masotta). And then I would say it was more like… let’s put it this way, when at immigrations they ask you your profession, you don’t say “novelist, writer.” It’s somehow embarrassing, inappropriate. That’s how I feel about saying “I’m an artist.” I say it but just as a formality, even though I don’t really know what it means. If I have to tell you what, deep down, I think an artist is, it is someone who lives like an artist, who is always open, always inventing new things, everything you can imagine that I might say about all that, which is just what you would say. Capturing and responding to what is happening around us, intervening in it… No one is like that all the time, it would be impossible to live that way all the time. But there are people who do it more than others… In any case, one of the things that makes me most suspicious about Argentina today is the number of institutions, of people with influence on groups of young people, who further the idea of the “professional artist,” with emphasis on professional, not on artist. That gives rise to a gap in language that complicates communication.

KS – There are a great many “cultural managers,” that’s for sure. It’s truly alarming.

RL – Your most recent organization-project is CIA. What does CIA set out to add or remedy or change in terms of the things you have done before?

RJ – Let’s take a look at how it began. Gachi Hasper, Diana Aisenberg and Melina Berkenwald wanted to organize a residency, a place for artists to come together… They wanted to get me involved, and I said, “I’ve had my fill of social projects, you guys do it. I’m through. What do you want me for?” And they said, “We promise you won’t have to do a thing, just let us use your name.” So far so good. We didn’t have a place for the residency, so we put an ad in ramona and the owner of the Hotel Ostende, a hotel on the beach, answered. That was perfect. “Great, I’ll do it. Two weeks vacation on the beach.” This was the first time I had been involved in a project that didn’t depend on me. It was a self-run project with others doing the running [laughter]. And it went on like that until 2009, when the material conditions that Judi [Werthein], Gachi [Hasper] and I needed to have a physical space appeared, along with a little money to get started. And at that point we designed a more detailed program of what we wanted to do. The premise was very simple: a space in Argentina for artists regardless of discipline to connect since the visual artist as such has become an abstraction. What difference is there between a visual artist and a filmmaker? Or a dancer or a performer? Or a musician and someone who makes sound works? Those differences are unsustainable, but still visual artists hang out with other visual artists, and dancers with other dancers. We wanted to build and facilitate connections, also between Argentine artists and artists from other places. Especially artists from other countries in Latin America because, unbelievable and absurd though it may be, Latin American countries have always had more contact with a central country than with a neighboring country that might be just an hour away by plane or boat, or just across a bridge.

KS – Connections with artists from other parts of Argentina as well. The first fellowship recipients at CIA, in 2009, were invited, but then there was a call for applications. There are more or less four hundred applications for twenty spots, and the juries have been great. Judi put it well: the category went from “fellowship recipient,” which is passive, to “agent.”

RL – In closing, what is your latest next project? Something we still don’t know a thing about.

RJ – I’m working on another album called Golosina Caníbal, after the experience of Tocame el Rok.²⁰

RL – Give me some background. Tocame el Rok…

RJ – Tocame el Rok began with the exhibition at Reina Sofía. Ana Longoni thought there should be something about my work in pop music. So she proposed a software containing all the songs I had written as well as pertinent information about them (date, where they were written, what was happening in Argentina at the time). At the museum, visitors could see the album covers, photos, and so forth. And then Ana thought there should be a part that was not confined to the past, not already closed off and recorded in an album, but happening in the present. She appointed singer and composer Nacho Marciano musical curator. They studied my files and came upon a ton of songs with no music. Ana’s project entailed producing something new for the show. And we developed the idea of Tocame el Rock, which consisted of working on some of the never-before-released songs from different periods with musician friends or musicians whom I had worked with in the past. We finished thirteen songs, but weren’t sure how to present them. It seemed strange and sort of dated to make a DVD or CD. And that’s how we came up with Tocame el Rok. We made rocks with the words Tocame el Rok printed on them, and you can hear the music through a USB port and cable connected to the rock. We presented the works as music and as art objects. We were trying to find a viable way for music to circulate today, so that we didn’t have to finance it ourselves. And it has worked out great! We were able to cover all the expenses and are paying the artists. Of course, since the rocks are sold as art objects, there is a serial edition of thirteen, each one unique because it is a rock, so no two are alike.

RL - The next project is seven never-before-released songs…

RJ – Sevensongs that have never been released. The title is Golosina Caníbal. They were on hold because, among other things, they were written at Chacra in 99. Leo García wrote the music to all the songs except one, which is by Nacho. Pajarito Ferrari—a twenty-year-old kid with an amazing voice—is the singer… Then, in October, Sebastián Gordín and I are going to have a show at the Nora Fisch Gallery of comics we made in 89 and 90. As you can see, I’m recycling everything I’ve got. As—who was it?—maybe Jayne County in Wayne County and the Electric Chairs said, “There is no junk… Junk doesn’t exist, just things waiting to be recycled.” [Laughter]

KS - The songs are beautiful. Here are four from Golosina… I’m always ready, if the situation arises…

RL – You’ve got the songs there?

KS – Yeah, I do.

RL - Let’s give them a listen and stop here.

Photo: Rosana Schoijett.

* *

Roberto Jacoby lives and works in Buenos Aires, where he was born in 1944. He is considered one of the pioneers of conceptual art. Nearly his entire life’s work has been produced collaboratively. In the 60s, he participated in the Di Tella and in Tucumán Arde. He was the song-writer for the pop band Virus and founder of Club Eros, ramona magazine and Proyecto V. In 2011, the Museo Reina Sofía hosted a large retrospective titled Desire Rises from Collapse and published a volume that collected his works, actions and concepts from 1966 to the present. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship and currently directs the Centro de Investigaciones Artisticas.

1 A civil uprising in the city of Córdoba, Argentina in May 1969 in which students and workers joined together to protest the military dictatorship of General Juan Carlos Onganía.

2A monthly magazine about the visual arts with no images that printed 101 paper issues in Buenos Aires between 2000 and 2010. From the start, ramona participated in emerging aesthetics and offered an alternative to traditional formats.

3 Argentine philosopher and literary critic who led the Grupo Arte de los Medios [Media Art Group], a collective of young artists started in the ‘60s.

4A cultural movement organized in 1981 by theater artists protesting against the military dictatorship.

5A bar and performance and exhibition space that was one of the important underground centers of Buenos Aires from the beginning of the 80s.

6An Argentine rock group fronted by Italian lead singer Luca Prodan in the 80s.

7A bookstore, art gallery and performance space directed by Fernanda Laguna and Cecilia Pavón that existed between 1999 and 2007.

8A cultural center of the University of Buenos Aires. The space’s art gallery was one of the focal points of activity for the artistic scene in Buenos Aires during the 90s.

9A show curated by Jorge Gumier Maier at the Recoleta Cultural Center in 1992.

10 The principal association of children whose parents “disappeared” during the last Argentine military dictatorship. It has been very active on the Argentine political scene since the middle of the 90s.

11 An association of mothers and grandmothers whose children and grandchildren were “disappeared” during the Dirty War between 1976 and 1983.

12 President of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

13 Leader of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo

14 An online database of contemporary Argentine artists featuring a short bio and questionnaire, photos of the artist’s work and/or video or sound samples, curated by the artists themselves.

15 A micro-society of artists and non-artists, with both on and offline life, that operated between 2002 and 2006. The project printed its own currency, the “venus,” in order to mediate exchanges of services, skills, knowledge and goods among “Venusians.”

16 Society, Technology and Art, an artist-run non-profit founded in 1999, fosters the development of new forms of interaction through the use of digital technology. START hosted all of the projects mentioned, including the magazine ramona, Proyecto V and Bola de Nieve.

17 Riots in the Plaza de Mayo precipitated by the Argentine government’s freezing of citizens’ bank accounts during the economic crisis left 39 people dead and brought about the fall of the government.

18 A controversial measure to raise export taxes on national agricultural products imposed by Cristina Kirchner’s government in 2008, leading to what has been called the Argentine Farm Crisis.

19A Peronist left-wing guerilla group known for its use of violent political tactics throughout the 60s and 70s and its opposition to the Argentine military dictatorship of Jorge Videla.

20 The title is a play on words; “tocame” in Spanish means both “touch me” and “play (as in play music) for me.”

The Ceremony

heather — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 17:01:23 +0000

Inés Marcó
translated by Alex Niemi

CAST

Pope
Layman
Guard of the Brotherhood
Brothers of the Circle

The characters meet at the entrance of a large urinal. The Pope is waiting for them.

Before entering, the brothers greet the Pope by turning in circles and waving their hands as if dancing the tarantella.

Everyone wears paint-stained aprons.

After the greeting, the Pope bestows a brush and palette on each of them. The brothers introduce themselves and crawl one by one into the hole of the urinal.

Once inside, the ceremony begins.

The Pope asks the Guard of the Brotherhood if all present belong to the circle. The Guard of the Brotherhood makes his rounds and confirms that they do.

Pope: Dada. Dada. Let the meeting begin!

All (in a church whisper): Dada. Dada.

Pope: In this, the 92^nd year of our era, we will initiate a layman to our circle.

There is a knock at the door.

Pope: Who goes there?

Layman (from outside): A layman who wishes to be an artist.

Pope: Enter!

The Layman enters, crawling through the hole. He has a tilted beret, a fake mustache, short pants, and suspenders. He is blindfolded. Once inside, they remove his beret, tear off his mustache and put him in an apron.
The brothers beat their paintbrushes against their palettes, frightening the Layman.

Pope: Before entering the brotherhood you must pass the test. Why do you wish to be an artist?

Layman: Because I am a good person of good report.

The Pope orders them to bring the linseed oil.

Two brothers hold the arms of the Layman to restrain him while another pours the linseed oil over his head.

The Layman squirms.

All (in unison): This is not a pipe! This is not a pipe!

The Layman kneels and is given his brush and palette.

Pope: Do you swear on your honor never to betray your brothers?

Layman: Yes, I swear.

Pope: Do you swear that if you do betray your brothers, you will relinquish your brush and palette?

Layman: Yes, I swear.

Pope: And lastly, do you swear never to reveal the secrets of art?

Layman: Yes, I swear.

Pope: Remove his blindfold!

When the blindfold is removed, the Layman is dazzled by a flash of light. Something spins above the Pope, who looks on, petrified. The Layman manages to make out, after a moment, the wheel of a bicycle.

All: Dada! Dada!

Pope (hitting his gavel on the podium three times and yelling with arms raised): The circle has a new brother!

Layman (murmurs fearfully): Dada, Dada.

The Layman trembles, clinging to his palette and brush.

The scene recedes and goes dark.

* *

Image: “Un cuadro expresionista” (An Expressionist Painting, 2009) by Inés Marcó

The Ceremony first appeared as part of Inés Marcó’s exhibit “The Ceremony. Paintings,” curated by Lara Marmor in June 2012 at Pan Libros, Buenos Aires, Argentina.