Fundacion Proa presents a solo exhibition of French artist Marcel Duchamp’s work in their new art space in La Boca.  The exhibition is titled “Marcel Duchamp: una obra que no es una obra ‘de arte,’” (Marcel Duchamp: a work that is not ‘a work of art’).  Duchamp is best known for his investigation of the “ready made,” which theorized that common, every day objects were themselves works of art.  He most famously presented a urinal to an exhibition, titled it “Fountain” and signed the name “R. Mott.”    He lived in Paris for most of his life, but escaped WWI to Buenos Aires for a brief period.  The exhibition will be the first of its kind in Latin America and will jointly host a debate on the impact of the artist’s work.  Paul Franklin, the editor-in-chief of Etànt donnè, will moderate.  The show opens on November 22nd and will run until February 1st at Avenida Pedro de Mendoza, 1929.

Read the rest of this entry »

Currently, laws prohibit online gambling, but Mayor Mauricio Macri is looking to change that for sports enthusiasts.  Greek company Intralot is the leader for the license, according to several reports. In Argentina, individual provinces may issue gaming licenses, but remote gambling is banned.  The National Lottery, additionally, handles all sports betting, according to Federal regulations.  The bill being proposed will revise land-based gaming and allow it to expand to websites and betting terminals.  The head of the Provincial Lottery and Casino Institue, Luise Peluso, has submitted it to several legislators.  It’s mainly opposed by religious leaders, who feel it is harmful to Argentine familys.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hundreds of people have already gone downtown to get their free tickets for “Semana de Teatro Independiente” which runs from November 3rd to November 9th.The festival, sponsored by the city government, will have more than 277 plays and 400 performances, all free to the public.When ticket offices opened for the first time yesterday, there was a long line stretching down the sidewalk of people waiting to pick up tickets: two per show for three shows maximum.The plays will be performed at theaters across the city, including in Recoleta, Villa del Parque, Monte Castro, Villa Crespo, Flores and Vélez Sarsfield, so you can pick a theater near you.According to the city’s website, tickets can be picked up at Avenida de Mayo 575 from 11 to 7pm until November 1st.

Read the rest of this entry »

Personal Fest is one of the biggest music events of the year in Buenos Aires, sponsored by one of Argentina’s largest cell phone service providers.The festival last two days, Friday and Saturday, and this year big name stars like The Offspring, The Jesus & Mary ChainandSpiritualized(Friday) and R.E.M., Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party and The Mars Volta(Saturday) are performing.This is the festival’s fifth year, taking place at Club Ciudad Buenos Aires, and the advertisements for Personal Fest have dotted the city for months in advance.For true fans of the bands or for anyone looking for a way to amp up their weekend, tickets are still available at Ticket.com.ar and cost 90 pesos.

Read the rest of this entry »

Beginning this Wednesday, October 29th, Buenos Aires Photo 2008 will showcase some of the best photography from artists around all of Latin America.According to My Buenos Aires Travel Guide, this is the event’s fourth year and it has grown and grown, perhaps because it is the only art fair that specializes on Latin American photography.This year, there are 30 galleries from 10 Latin American countries: Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Perú, Bolivia, Mexico, Colombia, United States, Dominican Republic, and Spain.In addition to these galleries, works by the finalists of the Petrobras Buenos Aires Photo Award 2008 will be presented.The festival takes place at the Palais de Glace on Posadas 1725 and entrance is 15 pesos.

Read the rest of this entry »

Beginning today and running until October 25th, a group of Chilean musicians will perform in a concert known as Tsonami (Tsunami), an electronic and acoustic event that began seven years ago in Valparaiso.According to the governmentwebsite, this year’s show in Buenos Aires takes place in the Centro Cultural Recoleta and is called “It is hard to listen, in the silence, to others.”By coming to Buenos Aires, the musicians are expressing their belief in the importance of appreciating and strengthening their ties with fellow Latin American musicians and composers, especially Argentine ones.The event is free and the complete program of music can be downloaded from the government website.

Read the rest of this entry »

An exhibit called “Great Masters of Humanity” displays the work of some of the great artists of the Renaissance.The exhibit opened yesterday at the Pabellón de las Bellas Artes de la Universidad Católica Argentina, located on Alicia M. de Justo 1300 in Puerto Madero. According to My Buenos Aires Travel Guide, the best known artists in the exhibit are Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Pedro Pablo Rubens (1577-1640), Albert Durer (1471-1528), and Antón van Dyck (1599-1641), though are also other painters from the same period.The work on display will not be their paintings but rather their engravings, etchings, and xylographs, over 100 in all. The exhibit, sponsored by the Netherlands Embassy in Buenos Aires, ends on November 9th and entrance is free.

Read the rest of this entry »

Spring is here in full force, and to enjoy these months of mild weather before the hot summer, the city government of Buenos Aires is sponsoring a series of outdoor concerts and events that will be free to the public.According to My Buenos Aires Travel Guide, there will be 250 events in total over the next eleven weeks, including musical shows, tango shows, theater, puppets, story telling, magic shows, film screenings, and poetry.The events are for adults and children.There will also be recitals at Parque Roca, urban music at the Greek Amphitheater in Puerto Madero, and tango in Mataderos, where the fería is held every weekend.The culminating event will be a performance on 9 de Julio, the city’s largest street, by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra on November 22. A full schedule of the events is available here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Avenida Corrientes, known as the Broadway of Buenos Aires, is one of the busiest, most car and people packed avenues in the city, and because of this the city is widening the sidewalks of Corrientes to give pedestrians more room.According to the Clarín, they are going to be widened between the streets Boulogne Sur Mer and Riobamba, where the sidewalk gets wider on its way to 9 de Julio.Of course, widening the sidewalk comes at the cost of narrowing the road itself, which some say could cause traffic problems that make the pedestrian traffic jams of today look like nothing.However, the Minister of Urban Development believes that the increase in trees and space will be more than worth the 8 million pesos this project will cost.

Read the rest of this entry »

Buenos Aires is the site of one boutique hotel inauguration every month and the city already has 34 of them!This kind of hotel offers personal care and personal quirks with many of the luxury perks of a five star hotel and it is becoming more and more popular among tourists to the city.According to La Nación, the majority of these hotels are in San Telmo and Palermo and there are currently plans to build eight more in these areas over the next two years.They are visited mainly by Europeans and North Americans, although lately there has been a growth in the number of Brazilian guests.The phenomenon of boutique hotels is not a national but an international movement, representing the desire of tourists to feel more like family and less like strangers in a isolated tower.

Read the rest of this entry »