Art of Buenos Aires

Art and architecture are my special interests,  so I tend to post a lot of those pictures here and on Facebook. A few months ago I posted a blog on the art of Argentina including a lot of interesting museum pieces. If you missed that one you might like to scroll back to February and take a look.

This post has a different focus. These are not necessarily my favorite pieces or even great art, but rather images I found unique, entertaining, innovative, provocative, and/or thought-provoking. To me these represent the art of Buenos Aires as well as those nice Latin American paintings from museums that I posted earlier. None of these are regular old paintings and none come from museums.

First are four different artist's interpretation of Eva Peron, the former First Lady of Argentina and a huge cultural icon. So I'm starting with the one that is literally huge. It's 10 stories high.

This enormous wrought iron sculpture covers ten stories on the side of a tall building in a very prominent part of the city on the widest street in the world, 9 de Julio. 

A large stained glass image of Evita in a window

This portrait is made out of bread.  Possibly the message is Evita tried to uplift the masses and give them more bread.  

A detail of the bread portrait

An image of what Evita might have looked like today as a modern tattooed, feminist. 

Here are some  other pieces that caught my eye

These horses are made from pieces of wood, possibly driftwood. and stand in a large hotel lobby. But wait- are these two horses or one horse and a unicorn?

These next three paintings of tango dancers come from the walls of a well-known milonga (tango dance hall).  I think they really capture the mood of the dance. 

This large mural is found on the wall of Gallerie Pacifica, an elegant Beaux Arts style shopping center with murals on the walls and ceilings by well known Argentine artists.

In my opinion signs like these are the iconic art of Buenos Aires. This typeface, the bright colors, they say Buenos Aires and are found no where else.

Andy Warhol. This picture was in that same hotel lobby with all the Evita portrait made from bread, Sorry about the lighting. It isn't a great likeness so I didn't plan to share it and didn't take a lot of trouble taking the photo.
 I bet you can't guess what this made from. You'll never guess. Detail below.

This portrait was made out of condoms. I am not certain if there is any symbolism there. As far as I know, Andy Warhol was asexual. 

Wedding shoes. I'd rather look at them than wear them. 

This fellow is a comedian and presumably chose his outfit for this billboard. I assume the theme is What I Look Like After A Wild Night.... in my Fantasies. I included it here because it is very creative of him, even if he looks ridiculous.

My favorite art is street art, It is Art for the people. In cities with a lot of graffiti there is a fashion to paint the security doors they put over stores at night. Because if you don't paint them then people just scribble graffiti all over it anyway. So there are many, many of these painted doors. Here are a few.

Medusa in a hoodie

Along with painted doors, some parts of town, like trendy Palermo, have painted buildings.