Argentina is going through stormy times with triple-digit inflation and more than 40% of its population impoverished. Looking ahead to the next elections, a far-right candidate with a good chance of being president promises to close the Ministry of Culture and the National Institute of Film and Audiovisual Arts. Even so, in the midst of the endless climate of political and economic uncertainty, Argentine artists manage to echo in all corners of the cultural scene. The country has become a hotbed of talent. Home to emblematic figures who have profoundly influenced the cultural sphere and whose contributions to literature, music, film and the arts are widely recognized around the world.
This week, the intersection of Walker Street and Cortlandt Alley in New York City was officially renamed Charly García Corner. In that corner of the Tribeca neighborhood, 40 years ago, the title and cover of the album Modern Clics was born, the soundtrack that musicalized the beginning of democracy in Argentina and is today a masterpiece of rock in Spanish. “I can't wait to tell a taxi driver 'leave me here, on Walker Street and I'll do it,'” ironically says the musician, who has officially become an international symbol of art and freedom of expression. In addition to being the first Latin American artist to receive this tribute, the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, declared that November 6 will become Charly García day.
In 1992, Fito Paez sang for the first time the phrase “no one can and no one should live without love.” Thirty years later, the artist demonstrates that the meaning of his lyrics is still more relevant than ever, with the reissue of his most successful album, Love After Love. The new version incorporates collaborations with Elvis Costello, David Lebón and Andrés Calamaro, and representatives of the new scene, such as Nathy Peluso and Nicki Nicole. The world tour of Love 30 Years After Love was a success that included two sold out concerts in Barcelona. With 11 Latin Grammys under his belt, Fito aspires to the twelfth in Seville, next week.
In the last edition of the San Sebastián festival, a movie-loving crowd applauded the record of Argentine screenings. One of them was the series Nada, starring Luis Brandoni, with the special participation of Robert De Niro. In the first series that he agrees to do in his 60-year career, De Niro brings to light his best Buenos Aires accent to explain some of the most typical Argentine expressions such as “rowing in dulce de leche” or “the truth of the breaded".
Another of the most awarded was Puan, a tragicomedy that introduced the public to the particular world of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires. Fictions like this “challenge one to be better, to understand people who are different from one more and to delve into unknown universes,” says his co-star, Leonardo Sbaraglia from Buenos Aires, where he is filming his next project. This year, the Wild Tales actor joined the cast of the series Elite and participated in the spin off of Bird Box Barcelona, for Netflix. In addition, he put himself in the shoes of former president Carlos Menem, to film the biopic of the man who marked Argentina in the 90s.
Camila Sosa Villada, one of the great names in contemporary literature, has just published her novel Thesis on a Domestication (Tusquets). The author also stars in the adaptation of the book to film, which will have its premiere soon. In her writings, Sosa Villada poetically addresses a brutal reality. Topics such as gender identity, sexual diversity and marginalization are portrayed with “a language that is a bit rebellious, poorly learned, even uncomfortable for me.” Art in her life has been “a profession, as prostitution once was.” A vocation born of necessity. She takes note of it when talking about the creativity of Argentina, where “to the same crisis as always, the political power continues to propose the same solutions.” She does admit that creativity has been a lifeline for its inhabitants. Her work was translated into more than twenty languages. Along with other big names in fiction, from César Aira to Rodrigo Fresán or Mariana Enríquez, the field of journalistic chronicle looks like an Argentine label, with Martín Caparrós, Leila Guerriero and many others.
Ricardo Darín, the actor of Nine Queens and The Secret in Their Eyes, this week returned to the stages of Barcelona to perform “the most important acting commitment of my career.” Four years after having triumphed at the Tívoli theater, the Argentine returns to star in Scenes of Conjugal Life, a stage version of the film of the same name by Ingmar Bergman, directed by Norma Aleandro and co-starring Andrea Pietra. The work began its tour with sold-out seats in Valladolid and will end the year in Madrid. In Barcelona, it can be seen until November 17, at the Coliseum.
While Darín shines in Barcelona, the singer and actor Gerónimo Rauch prepares every night in Madrid to put himself in the shoes of The Phantom of the Opera, one of the most iconic and challenging protagonists of musical theater. “We are like elite athletes. We are prepared to run the marathon every day, but without giving it our all, because if not, you won't make it the next day.” The actor had already worn the mask of this character in London's West End, where he also played another of the most demanded roles of the genre, Jean Valjean, in Les Miserables. There are not many performers who have been able to play both roles. “There is one Latino,” says Gerónimo.
According to him, the acting part is more challenging than the vocal part, and it is precisely his acting ability that is his greatest distinctive feature. What makes him unique is not his accent or his exceptional voice, but the passion and dedication with which he approaches these dramatic characters. “We Argentines are long-suffering,” says the actor, and this time he is not alone. There are four other Argentines, including Julio Awad, musical director.
Last month, in France, threats of an Islamic attack forced the Palace of Versailles to be evacuated in the afternoons. Even so, they were unable to prevent their Royal Opera show from taking place every night. Giulietta e Romeo, by Zingarelli, starring the Argentine countertenor Franco Fagioli. Countertenors are a rarity in the world of classical music, as they sing in an exceptionally high vocal register for ordinary men. Among those exceptions, Fagioli's voice generates greater confusion. More than a countertenor, he is a sopranist. He hits notes of a coloratura soprano with a unique emotional expressiveness. “He has a special soul,” said Gérard Mortier, former artistic director of the Teatro Real in Madrid, when he presented him with the top award in the German Neue Stimmen competition in 2003. Fagioli was not only the first countertenor to win it, but also to be admitted to this competition, one of the most consecrated in opera.
At 80 years old, the plastic artist Marta Minujín is traveling to New York to inaugurate her first individual exhibition in the United States. An Upper East Side museum will encompass more than a hundred works from different stages of her life. At the same time, an exhibition of hers pays tribute to him in Brazil and is a success that attracts 16,000 visitors every day. “The only person I feel comparable to is Mick Jagger,” jokes the artist, who also installed a sculpture in Times Square. “I don't see many people today who break up, break up!” Minujín's art is characterized by being highly political and turning the viewer into a participant. Like her when she installed the Parthenon of Forbidden Books in Buenos Aires in 1983, a reconstruction of the Greek temple made with 30,000 books censored during the Argentine civil-military dictatorship. The work was later reedited in Kassel, Germany, and today its film record can be seen in the Museum of Forbidden Art in Barcelona.
While Marta Minujín maintains that art has the capacity to heal, for Camila Sosa Villada, “to think that art can change the course of an injustice is naive.” “We have all seen movies about war, about bombs, children being dismembered, women being cut in half, and you see what is happening in Palestine.” The same year that Argentina celebrates 40 years of democracy, 30% of its citizens voted in the first round for the far-right candidate Javier Milei and his vice president who denies that 30,000 disappeared during the military dictatorship.
Charly García sings in Collective Unconscious: “Mom, you will always carry freedom / Inside your heart / They can corrupt you, you can forget / But she is always [...] Today I woke up singing this song / Which was already written a while ago back / It is necessary to sing it again one more time.”
