to pick up where i left off, Saturday afternoon i took the most amazing graffiti tour around Palermo and Colegiales, two neighborhoods with quite a colorful history. i'll do my best to give a brief synopsis of the history of graffiti in BsAs. graffiti had never made it here as it had in the rest of the world (big tagging of gang names, etc). of course, with origins in NYC, taggers began taking it all over europe and asia, but apparently minimally in s. america. then, there was a period of 2 weeks in the early 2000s when BsAs went through 5 presidents. people took to the streets, painting who they wanted in/out all over the place. of course, much of it was negative. one artist decided he wanted the people to have something nice to look at during their walks to work instead of all of the pessimism, so he got about 20 artist friends together and began painting the outside of his with lots of giant, colorful animal/characters. (the beginning of my graffiti pictures are his house). the neighbors across the street enjoyed it so much they asked them to paint their walls. soon enough, the artists were being commissioned by legit places, incuding subway stations and electric plants, to beautify their buildings. a few key differences between US graffiti and BsAs graffiti: 1) here they use normal latex house paint with rollers. this allows them to reach higher places than someone with an aerosol can. also latex paint allows for long -lasting, brightly colored images (whereas aerosol fades). 2) the artists actually collaborate with each other using space. it's not just "my stuff goes here, yours goes there". they intertwine images and play off each other. look closely and you will see what i mean. 3) because they don't have a history of rebellious graffiti here, it really isn't "wrong" to do it. as long as the artists get permission from the building they're painting, they have all the time in the world. this leads to more elaborate works, including very detailed stencils, which i tried to get some good shots of. you'll see a lot of commonality between some walls, because there are a group of artists that continue to get commissioned or ask to paint around the city. the lucha libre half-animal, half-person images are from a guy named Jazz. Banky is the awesome stencil artist (the wall where i took a picture in front of was commissioned by some chic-chic restaurant and has all of his favorite personal images. they let him do whatever he wanted). Zumi is a female artist, as is Pum-Pum. Nerf was also a big name, i think he did all the 3-d cubes. the artist you see actively painting the elvis and marilyn monroe was part of our tour, hired to show us how they are done.
a few quick words on some of the specific images. one of the really cool things about BsAs graffiti is the sentiments behind it. the image of the woman on the all with the arabic hookah smoke/snake charmer was done in honor of the artist's grandmother, who has alzheimer's. he went around and painted her stencil all over the city, in places she used to visit. even though she is forgetting the city, the city has not forgotten her. the shot of the woman's face on the rottweiler was the artist's ex-gf (never burn a guy who paints the city! our guide so eloquently pointed out). the floating head scarfs represent the killed women from some war. i feel terrible i can't remember specific, but it was quite poignant because they are now painted over an elementary school playground so it's like the mothers are watching over the children. the lamb with "fuerta magda" was a get-well card to a relative. the giant tortoise carrying the court building and justice was commissioned by a jewish group to honor a bombing of a temple. the tortoise of course symbolizes how slow justice moves. one guy did all these random ramones images and someone sent images to the group's fan group or manager or something and he was commissioned to design ramones' memorabilia. the last group of pictures is the local graffiti artists' bar where they consistently update the walls and also have rooms where they sell their work.
the cute girl posing in front of what is definitely one of my favorite walls is my new Australian friend Melissa who is 20 years old, just finished her first year of university in sydney, and is traveling by herself for 5 weeks in south america. sadly, she has already gone on to bariloche (patagonia), but her energy and quirkiness definitely added to the tour. we spoke in spanish for 3/4 of the time, which also added to the experience.
saturday evening maggie and i decided a low-key dinner would be best, so we headed to Desnivel in San Telmo. a hole-in-the-wall authentic Argentine restaurant where a steak dinner, spinach omelette, grilled proveleta and 1/2 Liter of wine came to $33 total. i won't get into the homemade dulce de leche flan. (dad, i promise i won't be as fat as i was when i got back from spain!)
sunday morning i made my way to the Palermo Parks for my first real run, which felt amazing. they have a mini Central Park thing going on, with lakes and running trails. just like home! then maggie and i met up with Allie, a friend of a friend kind of situation (Jen Chernaik, if you're reading this, I met Allie! and she's awesome!). we met at Mooi, an uber cute cafe in Belgrano for a late brunch. Allie is 25 and has been living here for about 4 years, works for a company that helps ex-pats study and volunteer abroad and also writes a food blog about BsAs restaurants. of course we got along swimmingly. she also lives with her Argentine boyfriend. que copado! my yogurt, fruit and granola, fresh OJ and cafe con leche were perfect, especially for the low price of 33 pesos (about $8). after, maggie and i checked out the giant shopping (their term for shopping mall) in Palermo, just to get out of the sweltering heat. i got a $10 tank from zara with a picture of a rabbit dressed up in a dress, bow and purse, and the most ridiculous english phrase: "i'm feeling wonderful. i'm waiting for my date." how could i not buy it?
when we got back to the apartment, we found we had a new roommate who moved into Chris' old room. Jo is British, turning 35 on Saturday, here taking 2 weeks of Tango during her vacation and works in development/aide for third world countries. she has worked and lived in Tanzania, Mozambique and Afghanistan, just to name a few, overseeing projects regarding education, women's issues, health, etc. her fave place is afghanistan, i kid you not. she totally lights up when she talks about it. so here she is, saving the world, and i'm off taking wine classes.
after wine class tonight (i got 15 out of the 20 scents right! up from 8/20), i met up with heather, another american woman living here. she has been here since 2004 working in the wine industry but unfortunately moving to LA in a week. she had a friend, Chris, in town from LA who actually has a show on XM. (schwartz, i'm emailing you later about this!) we had an yet another amazing dinner at a very homey place literally around the corner from me that i didn't know about, and will definitely be returning now that i met the owner, Felix. after, we went to an old library turned jazz club where heather's friend mickey, a 75-year old jewish man from the bronx, was partaking in a jam session. he married an argentine woman a while ago and moved down here a few years ago. he also works in wine. marta, his wife, is a spanish tutor and she our first private class is friday afternoon. Chris, the friend visiting from LA, just finished his yoga teacher training and is giving heather, maggie and me a private yoga class wednesday afternoon at heather's apartment so he can get his groove going.
that's all i got for now. will add captions to the pictures when it's not 2am.
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