BACKGROUND
HISTORY
Ask anyone from Buenos Aires and they will tell you that the business, history and politics of the city are the business, history and politics of Argentina. As the capital of the country and home to one-third of the national population, Buenos Aires is the epicenter of every major Argentine drama – from triumph to defeat and back.
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THE SPANISH ARRIVE
Although the banks of the Río de la Plata (River Plate) had been populated for tens of thousands of years by nomadic hunter-gatherers, the first attempt at establishing a permanent settlement was made by Spanish aristocrat Pedro de Mendoza in 1536. His verbose name for the outpost, Puerto Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Aire (Port Our Lady Saint Mary of the Good Wind) was matched only by his extravagant expedition of 16 ships and nearly 1600 men – almost three times the size of Hernán Cortés’ forces that conquered the Aztecs. In spite of the resources, Mendoza did some fantastically poor planning and arrived too late in the season to plant crops. The Spanish soon found themselves short on food and in typical colonialist fashion tried to bully the local Querandí indigenous groups into feeding them. A bitter fight and four years of struggle ensued, which led to such an acute shortage of supplies that some of the Spanish resorted to cannibalism. Mendoza fled back to Spain, while a detachment of troops who were left behind retreated upriver to Asunción (now the capital of Paraguay).
With Francisco Pizarro’s conquest of the Inca empire in present-day Peru as the focus of the Spanish Crown, Buenos Aires was largely ignored for the next four decades. In 1580 Juan de Garay returned with an expedition from Asunción and attempted to rebuild Buenos Aires. The Spanish had not only improved their colonizing skills since Mendoza’s ill-fated endeavor but also had some backup from the cities of Asunción and Santa Fe.
Still, Buenos Aires remained a backwater in comparison to Andean settlements such as Tucumán, Córdoba, Salta, La Rioja and Jujuy. With the development of mines in the Andes and the incessant warfare in the Spanish empire swelling the demand for both cattle and horses, ranching became the core of the city’s early economy. Spain maintained harsh restrictions on trade out of Buenos Aires and the increasingly frustrated locals turned to smuggling contraband.
The city continued to flourish and the crown was eventually forced to relax its restrictions and co-opt the growing international trade in the region. In 1776 Madrid made Buenos Aires the capital of the new Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, which included the world’s largest silver mine in Potosí (in present-day Bolivia). For many of its residents, the new status was recognition that the adolescent city was outgrowing Spain’s parental authority.
Although the new viceroyalty had internal squabbles over trade and control issues, when the British raided the city twice, in 1806 and 1807, the response was unified. Locals rallied against the invaders without Spanish help and chased them out of town. These two battles gave the city’s inhabitants confidence and an understanding of their self-reliance. It was just a matter of time until they broke with Spain.
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INDEPENDENCE
When Napoleon conquered Spain and put his brother on the throne in 1808, Buenos Aires became further estranged from Madrid and finally declared its independence on May 25, 1810.
Six years later, on July 9, 1816, outlying areas of the viceroyalty also broke with Spain and founded the United Provinces of the River Plate. Almost immediately a power struggle arose between Buenos Aires and the provincial strongmen: the Federalist landowners of the interior provinces were concerned with preserving their autonomy while the Unitarist businessmen of Buenos Aires tried to consolidate power in the city with an outward orientation toward overseas commerce and European ideas. Some of the interior provinces decided to go their own way, forming Paraguay in 1814, Bolivia in 1825 and Uruguay in 1828.
After more than a decade of violence and uncertainty, Juan Manuel de Rosas become governor of Buenos Aires in 1829. Although he swore that he was a Federalist, Rosas was more of an opportunist – a Federalist when it suited him and a Unitarist once he controlled the city. He required that all international trade be funneled through Buenos Aires, rather than proceeding directly to the provinces, and set ominous political precedents, creating the mazorca (his ruthless political police) and institutionalizing torture.
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THE FLEETING GOLDEN YEARS
Rosas’ overthrow came in 1852 at the hands of Justo José de Urquiza, a rival governor who tried to transfer power to his home province of Entre Rios. In protest, Buenos Aires briefly seceded from the union, but was reestablished as the capital when Bartolomé Mitre crushed Urquiza’s forces in 1861. From there, Buenos Aires never looked back and became the undisputed power center of the country.
The economy boomed and Buenos Aires became a port town of 90,000 people in the late 1860s. Immigrants poured in from Spain, Italy and Germany, followed by waves of newcomers from Croatia, Ireland, Poland and Ukraine. Its population grew nearly seven-fold from 1869 to 1895, to over 670,000. The new residents worked in the port, lived tightly in crammed tenement buildings, developed tango and jump-started the leftist labor movement. The onslaught of Europeans not only expanded Buenos Aires into a major international capital but gave the city its rich multicultural heritage, famous idiosyncrasies and sharp political differences.
By Argentina’s centennial in 1910, Buenos Aires was a veritable metropolis. The following years witnessed the construction of the subway, while British companies built modern gas, electrical and sewer systems. Buenos Aires was at the height of a Golden Age, its bustling streets full of New World businesses, art, architecture and fashion. By the beginning of WWI, Argentina was one of the world’s 10 richest countries, ahead of France and Germany.
Conservative forces dominated the political sphere until 1916 when the Radical Party leader Hipólito Yrigoyen took control of the government in a move that stressed fair and democratic elections. After a prolonged period of elite rule, this was the first time Argentina’s burgeoning middle class obtained a political voice.
It was also the time that Argentina’s fortune started to change. Export prices dropped off, wages stagnated and workers became increasingly frustrated and militant. La Semana Trágica (Tragic Week), when over a hundred protesters were killed during a metalworkers’ strike, was the culmination of these tensions; some say this radical reaction was due to the government being pressured by moneyed interests. The Wall Street crash of 1929 dealt the final blow to the export markets and a few months later the military took over the country. The Golden Age became a distant memory. It was the first of many military coups that blemished the rest of the century and shackled the progress of the nation. Scholars have argued that the events that culminated in the 2001 economic collapse can be traced back to the military coup led by General José Félix Uribiru in 1930.
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THE AGE OF THE PERÓNS
During WWII the rural poor migrated into Buenos Aires in search of work. The number of people living in the city nearly tripled and it soon held a third of the national population (similar to the percentage today). The growing strength of these urban working classes swept populist Lieutenant-General Juan Domingo Perón into the presidency in 1946. Perón had been stationed for a time in Italy and developed his own brand of watered-down Mussolini-style fascism. He quickly nationalized large industry, including the railways, and created Argentina’s first welfare state. Borrowing from Fascist Italy and Germany, Perón carefully cultivated his iconic image and held massive popular rallies in the Plaza de 25 de Mayo.
The glamorous Eva Duarte, a onetime radio soap-opera star, became the consummate celebrity first lady upon marrying Perón, and an icon who would eclipse Perón himself. Known as Evita, her powerful social-assistance foundation reached out to lower-class women through giveaways of such things as baby bottles and strollers, and the construction of schools and hospitals. The masses felt a certain empathy with Evita, who was also born into the working class. Her premature death in 1952 came just before things went sour and her husband’s political power plummeted.
After Evita’s death Perón financed payouts to workers by simply printing new money, bungled the economy, censored the press and cracked down on opposition. He was strikingly less popular without Evita, and was deposed of by the military in 1955 after two terms in office. Perón lived in exile in Spain while a series of military coups ailed the nation. When he returned in 1973, there were escalating tensions from left and right parties; even if he’d lived to serve his term of re-election, Perón would have had much on his plate. His successor, his hapless third wife Isabelita, had even less staying power and her overthrow by a military junta in 1976 came as no surprise.
Although the effects of Perón’s personal political achievements are debatable, the Peronist party, based largely on his ideals, has endured – both Menem and Kirchner are Peronists (although their policies have little to do with anything espoused by Perón himself).
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THE DIRTY WAR
The new and decidedly more evil military rulers instituted the Process of National Reorganisation, known as El Proceso and headed by the notorious Jorge Rafael Videla. Ostensibly an effort to remake Argentina’s political culture and modernize the economy, El Proceso was little more than a Cold War–era attempt to kill off or intimidate all leftist political opposition.
Based in Buenos Aires, a left-wing guerrilla group known as the Montoneros bombed foreign buildings, kidnapped executives for ransom and robbed banks to finance their armed struggle against the government. The Montoneros were composed mainly of educated, middle-class youths who were hunted down by the military government in a campaign known as La Guerra Sucia (the Dirty War). Somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 civilians died; many of them simply ‘disappeared’ while walking down the street or sleeping in their beds. Most were tortured to death, or sedated and dropped from planes into the Río de la Plata. Anyone who seemed even sympathetic to the Montoneros could be whisked off the streets and detained, tortured or killed. A great number of the ‘disappeared’ are still unaccounted for today.
The military leaders let numerous aspects of the country’s well-being slip into decay along with the entire national economy. When Ronald Reagan took power in the USA in 1981, he reversed Jimmy Carter’s condemnation of the junta’s human-rights abuses and even invited the generals to visit Washington, DC. Backed by this relationship with the USA, the military were able to solicit development loans from international lenders, but endemic corruption quickly drained the coffers into their Swiss bank accounts.
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THE RETURN TO DEMOCRACY
The military dictatorship that ruled the country with an iron fist lasted from 1976 to 1983. General Leopoldo Galtieri took the reins of the draconian military junta in 1981 but its power was unraveling: the economy was in recession, interest rates skyrocketed and protesters took to the streets of Buenos Aires. A year later, Galtieri tried to divert national attention by goading the UK into a war over control of the Falkland Islands (known in Argentina as Las Islas Malvinas). The British had more resolve than the junta had imagined and Argentina was easily defeated. The greatest blow came when the British nuclear submarine Conqueror torpedoed the Argentine heavy cruiser General Belgrano, killing 323 men. Argentina still holds that the ship was returning to harbor.
Embarrassed and proven ineffectual, the military regime fell apart and a new civilian government under Raúl Alfonsín took control in 1983. Alfonsín enjoyed a small amount of success and was able to negotiate a few international loans, but he could not limit inflation or constrain public spending. By 1989 inflation was out of control and Alfonsín left office five months early, when Carlos Menem took power.
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MENEM & THE BOOM YEARS
Under the guidance of his shrewd economy minister, Domingo Cavallo, the skillfully slick Carlos Menem introduced free-market reforms to stall Argentina’s economic slide. Many of the state-run industries were privatized and, most importantly, the peso was fixed by law at an equal rate to the American dollar. Foreign investment poured into the country. Buenos Aires began to thrive again: buildings were restored and new businesses boomed. The capital’s Puerto Madero docks were redeveloped into an upscale leisure district, tourism increased and optimism was in the air. People in Buenos Aires bought new cars, talked on cell phones and took international vacations.
Although the economy seemed robust to the casual observer, by Menem’s second term (1995–99) things were already amiss. The inflexibility imposed by the economic reforms made it difficult for the country to respond to foreign competition, and Mexico’s 1995 currency collapse jolted a number of banks in Buenos Aires. Not only did Menem fail to reform public spending, but corruption was so widespread that it dominated daily newspaper headlines.
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THE ECONOMIC CRISIS
As an economic slowdown deepened into a recession, voters turned to the mayor of Buenos Aires, Fernando de la Rúa, and elected him president in 1999. He was faced with the need to cut public spending and hike taxes during the recession.
The economy stagnated further, investors panicked, the bond market teetered on the brink of oblivion and the country seemed unable to service its increasingly heavy international debt. Cavallo was brought back in as the economy minister and in January 2001, rather than declaring a debt default, he sought over US$20 million more in loans from the IMF.
Argentina had been living on credit and it could no longer sustain its lifestyle. The facade of a successful economy had been ripped away, and the indebted, weak inner workings were exposed. As the storm clouds gathered, there was a run on the banks. Between July and November, Argentines withdrew around US$20 billion from the banks, hiding it under their mattresses or sending it abroad. In a last-ditch effort to keep money in the country, the government imposed a limit of US$1000 a month on bank withdrawals. Called the corralito (little corral), the strategy crushed many informal sectors of the economy that function on cash (taxis, food markets), and rioters and looters took to the streets. As the government tried to hoard the remaining hard currency, all bank savings were converted to pesos and any remaining trust in the government was broken. Middle-class protesters joined the fray in a series of pot-and-pan banging protests, and both Cavallo and, then, de la Rua resigned.
Two new presidents came and went in the same week and the world’s greatest default on public debt was declared. The third presidential successor, former Buenos Aires province governor Eduardo Duhalde, was able to hold onto power. In order to have more flexibility, he dismantled the currency-board system that had pegged the peso to the American dollar for a decade. The peso devalued rapidly and people’s savings were reduced to a fraction of their earlier value. In January 2002 the banks were only open for a total of six days and confidence in the government was nonexistent. The economy ceased to function: cash became scarce, imports stopped and demand for nonessential items flat-lined. More than half of the fiercely proud Argentine people found themselves below the national poverty line: the once comfortable middle class woke up in the lower classes and the former lower classes were plunged into destitution. Businesspeople ate at soup kitchens and homelessness became rampant.
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ENTER NÉSTOR KIRCHNER
Duhalde, to his credit, was able to use his deep political party roots to keep the country together through to elections in April 2003. Numerous candidates entered the contest; the top two finishers were Menem (making a foray out of retirement for the campaign) and Néstor Kirchner, a little-known governor of the thinly populated Patagonian province of Santa Cruz. Menem bowed out of the runoff election and Kirchner became president.
Kirchner was the antidote to the slick and dishonest Buenos Aires establishment politicians. He was an outsider, with his entire career in the provinces and a personal air of sincerity and austerity. The people were looking for a fresh start and someone to believe in – and they found that in Kirchner.
During his term Kirchner defined himself as a hard-nosed fighter. In 2003 he managed to negotiate a debt-refinancing deal with the IMF under which Argentina would only pay interest on its loans. In 2006 Argentina repaid its $9.5 billion debt, not a small feat, which drove his approval rates up to 80%. The annual economic growth was averaging an impressive 8%, the poverty rate dropped to about 25% and unemployment nose-dived. A side effect of the 2001 collapse was a boom in international tourism, as foreigners enjoyed cosmopolitan Buenos Aires at bargain prices, injecting tourist money into the economy.
But not all was bread and roses. The fact that Argentina repaid its debts was fantastic news indeed but economic stability didn’t follow by design. In fact, a series of problems ensued during Kirchner’s presidency – high inflation rates caused by a growing energy shortage, the unequal distribution of wealth and the rising breach between the rich and the poor that was slowly obliterating the middle class. Some argue that the official inflation figures were manipulated – and have been, in fact, double – to mask the government’s failure at reining in inflation. The administration bullied supermarket chains and wholesale vendors into introducing price caps on basic goods, from beef to tomatoes, which some saw as a surefire way to harm the country’s potent agriculture industry and discourage investment.
On the foreign policy front, Kirchner’s belligerence aimed at outside forces (and deposed ‘neo-liberals’ Cavallo and Menem) was in contrast to the close ties he established with Venezuela’s left-wing Hugo Chávez, who became Argentina’s biggest creditor. Some believe this relationship was forged to counter the power of the IMF, the World Bank and Washington. In November 2005, when George Bush flew in for the 34-nation Summit of the Americas, his presence sparked massive demonstrations around the country. Although anti-US sentiment unites most Argentines, some fear that Kirchner’s schmoozing with Chavez may have alienated potential investors in the United States and Europe.
Kudos goes to Kirchner for making admirable strides toward addressing the human rights abuses of the military dictatorship. In 2005 the Supreme Court lifted an amnesty law that protected former military officers suspected of Dirty War crimes and this led to a succession of trials. Perhaps the most publicized was the case of Reverend Christian von Wernich, the first Catholic priest persecuted in Argentina in connection to the human rights abuses, who was sentenced to life in prison in October 2007. Ghosts were further stirred with the 2006 disappearance of Jorge Julio Lopez the day before he was slated to testify against former police officer Miguel Etchecolatz. Etchecolatz was sentenced to life even without the testimony but Lopez’ case was the talk of the town, with the press calling him the first desaparecido (literally ‘disappeared one’) of the democratic era.
Toward the end of his presidency, Kirchner’s administration met a series of difficulties that included government corruption scandals (the economy minister Felisa Miceli resigned over a brown paper bag packed with US$64,000 in cash that was found in her office bathroom in July 2007), the teachers’ protests in April 2007 that resulted in the death of a teacher in the southwestern province of Neuquén and political unrest in Kirchner’s native province of Santa Cruz.
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THE RISE OF THE KIRCHNER DYNASTY
When Néstor Kirchner stepped aside in July 2007 in favor of his wife’s candidacy, many started wondering: will ‘Queen Cristina’ (as she’s often called due to her regal comportment) be just a puppet for her husband who intends to rule behind the scenes?
In the October 2007 presidential election, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner went from first lady to president, having captured 44.9% of the vote (23% of the vote went to center-left ex-deputy Elisa Carrió and 17% to former economy minister Roberto Lavagna). The weak opposition and her husband’s enduring clout are some of the reasons cited for Cristina’s clear-cut victory despite the lack of straightforward policies during her campaign. While this is not the first time Argentina has had a female head of state (Isabel Peron held a brief presidency by inheriting her husband’s term), Cristina is the first woman president to become elected by popular vote. As a lawyer and senator she’s often compared to Hillary Clinton; as a fashion-conscious political figure with a penchant for chic dresses and designer bags, she evokes memories of Evita.
Cristina’s victory wasn’t without controversy. Some are guessing that the power couple ushered in a Perón-style political dynasty in which they’d run the country for many years to come. As presidents in Argentina are restricted to two consecutive four-year terms but can run again after a term on the outside, the Kirchners could potentially stay in power for the next 16 years.
Having inherited a bagful of problems from her husband’s years in power, Cristina faces numerous challenges during her term. Many worry that Argentina’s economic development isn’t sustainable and that simply continuing the center-left policies won’t solve the current issues. Cristina will first need to differentiate herself from her husband and not rest on his laurels when it comes to saving the country. She’ll also have to woo foreign investors that Néstor may have alienated due to his alliance with Chávez (although she did condemn the Colombian invasion of Ecuador and visited Venezuela in March 2008 to show her support). Most importantly, she’ll need to tackle Argentina’s top concerns that include high inflation, rising crime, frozen energy prices and unequal distribution of wealth. In February 2008, as a way of addressing the energy crisis, Cristina signed an agreement with Brazil’s Lula da Silva to build a joint uranium enrichment plant. But this was just a start. How the presidenta will head off remains to be seen.
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ARTS
The arts scene in Buenos Aires has always been lively but in the last few years it’s really been flourishing. The flipside of the 2001 economic crisis was an outburst of creative energy in the Buenos Aires’ art circles. The woes that ensued seemed to be as big a stimulant to creativity as the military dictatorship was a terribn drag on it. Gone was the booming ’90s dominance of snooty galleries, lavish films and overhyped plays. A refreshing, make-do approach was born out of the troubles, particularly in cinema, theater and the visual arts. Filmmakers now produce quality works on shoestring budgets, artists showcase their work in funky storefront galleries, and drama troupes perform in private homes and other unconventional venues.
A lot of talented porteños who fled the country in search of better prospects abroad immediately after the crisis have since returned. Now, together with those who held court through the troubled times, these artists have managed to bring a cosmopolitan level of sophistication and a sense of innovation to BA’s arts scene. This creative boom has been attracting an ever-increasing number of foreigners to the city, now seen as totally happening and affordable thanks to favorable exchange rates.
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MUSIC & DANCE
Music and dance are well entwined in Buenos Aires, at least when it comes to the city’s most famous export, the tango. The Buenos Aires opera traditionally performs in palatial Teatro Colon. This incredible facility, one of the finest in the world, is currently undergoing renovations and won’t reopen until 2010. Other venues, such as the Teatro Avenida, frequently host classical music, modern dance and ballet. And balletophiles will already know that BA is home to Julio Bocca, a superstar in the field.
Tango
The tango, both as music and dance, is without doubt the best-known manifestation of Argentine popular culture. Figures like the legendary Carlos Gardel, Ástor Piazzolla, Osvaldo Pugliese, Susana Rinaldi and Eladia Blásquez have brought tango to the world.
There’s also a clutch of new arrivals on the scene who are keeping tango alive. The most popular is the 12-musician cooperative Orquesta Típica Fernández Fierro (www.fernandezfierro.com), with their charismatic singer Walter Chino Laborde, a dedicated following at home and abroad, a documentary made about them by Argentine-born Brooklyn-based director Nicolas Entel (www.orquestatipica.com) and several fantastic albums with new arrangements of traditional tangos and some original songs. When they’re not on tour, you can catch them live at a weekly Wednesday milonga (tango dance hall) at Club Atlético Fernández Fierro (Sánchez de Bustamante 764) in Abasto, as well as at other venues. Another young orchestra to watch out for is Orquesta Típica Imperial (www.orquestaimperial.com.ar) who regularly play at milongas around town.
You’ll find tango played constantly on the radio (particularly on the 24-hour, all-tango station, FM Tango 92.7). It tops the bill at the capital’s finest nightclubs and can often be heard in the streets, especially during the Sunday fair in San Telmo.
The popularity of canyengue, an early tango style with its origins in Central Africa, is on the rise in tango circles. This sensual dance that is performed in a close embrace features a lot of rhythmic ‘cuts’ and ‘breaks’. The legends on the scene are the adorable Marta and Manolo, an older couple who frequently perform at milongas – catch them if you can!
For more on the history of tango, see the boxed text Click here; for classes, milongas and tango shows, Click here.
Rock & Pop
Argentine rock started in the late 1960s with a trio of groups, such as Almendra (great melodies and poetic lyrics), Manal (urban blues) and Los Gatos (pop), leading the pack. Evolution was slow, however; the 1966 and 1976 military regimes didn’t take a shine to the liberalism and freedom that rock represented. It didn’t help that anarchy-loving, beat-music rocker Billy Bond induced destructive mayhem at a 1972 Luna Park concert, enforcing the theme of rock music as a social threat.
Underground groups and occasional concerts kept the genre alive, and after the Falklands War in 1982 (when English lyrics had not been allowed on the air) radio stations found rock nacional and helped the movement’s momentum gain ground. Argentine rock produced national icons like Charly García (formerly a member of the pioneering group Sui Generis) and Fito Páez (a socially conscious pop-hippie). Sensitive poet-songwriter Alberto Luis Spinetta of Almendra fame also had an early influence on the Argentine rock movement, later incorporating jazz into his LPs. Another mythical figure is Andrés Calamaro, frontman of the popular 1970s band Los Abuelos de la Nada who later emigrated to Spain where he formed the acclaimed Los Rodríguez; he’s been performing solo since the late 1990s.
More recent popular Argentine groups playing rock nacional include the now defunct Soda Stereo who reunited for a tour around the Americas in 2007; hippyish Los Divididos (descendants of the famous group Sumo); Mendozan trio Los Enanitos Verdes; the wildly unconventional Babasónicos; cultlike Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota (their legendary leader Indio Solari now has a solo career); and Los Ratones Paranóicos, who in 1995 opened for the Rolling Stones’ spectacularly successful five-night stand in Buenos Aires.
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs (winners of a Grammy in 1998 for best alternative Latin rock group) have popularized ska and reggae, along with groups such as Los Auténticos Decadentes, Los Pericos and Los Cafres. Almafuerte, descended from the earlier Hermética, is Buenos Aires’ leading heavy-metal band. The bands Dos Minutos and Expulsados emulate punk-rock legends the Ramones, who are popular in Argentina. The band Les Luthiers satirizes the middle class or military using irreverent songs played with unusual instruments, many of which the band built themselves. Another quirky character is Sandro, an Argentine clone of Elvis.
Singer Patricia Sosa has a captivating voice and performs a mix of rock, soul and blues; her closest counterpart in the English-speaking world would be Janis Joplin. The most recent singer-songwriter who has gained fame abroad is Juana Molina, whose ambient music with electronic flair has been compared to Bjork’s. Keep an eye out for the latest on the scene – Juana Chang and the Wookies with their combo of indie-rock, garage and punk, and Manta Raya, a new rave band that released their debut album Yeah! in 2007 and fuse rock with techno and drumbeats.
Today some of Argentina’s most cutting-edge bands include versatile Los Piojos (mixing rock, blues, ska and the Uruguayan music styles murga and candombe), catchy Miranda! (electro-pop), wacky Bersuit Vergarabat (utilizing multigenre tunes with political, offensive and wave-making lyrics), free-willed La Renga (blue-collar, no-nonsense and political), La Portuaria who collaborated with David Byrne (rock fusion influenced by jazz and R&B) and Gazpacho (new wave of pop-rock). And don’t miss the multicultural, alternative and eclectic Kevin Johansen.
Jazz & Blues
Both these brands of music have substantial numbers of fans and performers among porteños, and you should have no trouble catching live shows at key venues (Click here).
A fair number of Argentina’s jazz greats have emigrated (Lalo Schifrin and Gato Barbieri among them). Among those who’ve stayed is guitarist Luis Salinas, whose music is mellow and melodic (along George Benson lines but a bit less poppy). Be sure to check out his jazz takes on such traditional Argentine forms as the chacarera, chamamé and tango. A hot new jazz player is the young guitarist Tomás Becú, whose debut album, Bushwick (2007), is stellar. Another new wave star is the contrabass player Mariano Otero who performs regularly in BA with his jazz orchestra. For wildly experimental jazz check out the Gordöloco Trío, who fuse ambient, funk and jazz in their 20-minute-long songs.
Drummer Sebastián Peyceré who favors a funk-tinged fusion has toured the country with Salinas, jammed at the Blue Note and played with the likes of Paquito D’Rivera, BB King and Stanley Jordan. BA’s own version of the Sultans of Swing is the Caoba Jazz Band, who for years have been playing 1920s and ’30s New Orleans–style jazz for the love of it.
The high degree of crossover between Buenos Aires’ blues and rock scenes is illustrated by the path of guitar wizard Pappo. An elder statesman, Pappo was in the groundbreaking rock group Los Abuelos de la Nada and became involved with the seminal blues/rock band Pappo’s Blues, as well as Los Gatos and others. He recently re-formed his ’80s metal band, Riff. While living in London in the late ’70s, Pappo gave up a chance to join the nascent Motörhead in order to tour with Peter Green, former Fleetwood Mac ace. Once he sets to wailing on his Gibson, you’ll forget the fact that Pappo’s voice and original lyrics aren’t so hot. He plays hard-driving, full-tilt rockin’ blues and is especially great when covering such American masters as Howlin’ Wolf, BB King and Muddy Waters.
Guitarist/singer Miguel ‘Botafogo’ Vilanova is an alumnus of Pappo’s Blues and an imposing figure in his own right. Memphis La Blusera have been around BA’s blues scene a long time and still put on a good show; they’ve worked with North American legend Taj Mahal.
Also worth checking out is La Mississippi, a seven-member group that has been performing rock-blues since the late 1980s. Watch out for shows by Old Blues acoustic trio, the Lejano Sur duet, and La Buenos Ayres Blues Band.
Latin & Electronica
Buenos Aires’ young clubbers have embraced the música tropical trend that’s swept Latin America in recent years. Many a BA booty is shaken to the lively, Afro-Latin sounds of salsa, merengue and especially cumbia. Originating in Colombia, cumbia combines an infectious dance rhythm with lively melodies, often carried by brass. An offshoot is cumbia experimental or cumbia villera, an electronic version that’s now the hottest ticket in the city’s villas and clubs. The cumbia DJ star is Villa Diamante, who regularly plays at clubs and one-off parties around town. Another hot name is Princesa, the reggaeton and dancehall princess who is Argentina’s answer to MIA.
An interesting phenomenon on the electronic pop scene is Tonolec, a duo (singer and synth player) that combines traditional folk songs of the Toba indigenous community from Argentina’s north (some of which have been passed down orally) with an electronic sound. The singer also uses traditional instruments in their live gigs, creating a warm, world-music–style fusion.
Dance music is big in BA, with DJs working the clubs well into the morning. A few major electronic names to look out for are Bad Boy Orange (big on drums and bass); Aldo Haydar (a true veteran of progressive house); local boy made international star, Hernán Cattaneo (you loved him at Burning Man festival, remember?); and Gustavo Lamas (a blend of ambient pop and electro house). The trance-house master John Digweed has been known to spin in BA on his way to laying down summer grooves in Punta del Este, the Uruguayan beach resort.
One of BA’s most interesting music spectacles is La Bomba del Tiempo, a collective of drummers that features some of Argentina’s leading percussionists. Their explosive performances are conducted by Santiago Vázquez, who communicates with the musicians through a language of mysterious signs – the result is an incredible improvisational union that simulates electronic dance music and sounds different every time. During the summer, they play open-air at Cuidad Cultural Konex (Click here) every Monday evening; they’re also featured at various happenings and parties in BA’s clubs.
Folk Music
The folk music of Argentina is inspired by generations of immigrants and spans a variety of styles, including chacarera, chamamé and zamba. The late Atahualpa Yupanqui was a giant of Argentine folk music, which takes much of its inspiration from the northwestern Andean region and countries to the north, especially Bolivia and Peru. Los Chalchaleros, a northern Argentine folk institution, have been around for more than 50 years.
Other contemporary performers include Mercedes Sosa of Tucumán (probably the best-known Argentine folk artist outside South America); El Chaqueño Palavecino of Salta; Suna Rocha (also an actress) of Córdoba; Eduardo Falú; Antonio Tarragó Ross; Víctor Heredia; León Gieco (modern enough to adopt and adapt a rap style at times); and the Conjunto Pro Música de Rosario. Singer-songwriter-guitarist Horacio Guarany, whose 2004 album Cantor De Cantores was nominated for a Latin Grammy in the Best Folk Album category, performs in BA regularly. Of the younger generation, the artists to watch out for are Chango Spasiuk, an accordion player who popularized chamamé music abroad and has been making rounds at world-music festivals, and Mariana Baraj, a singer and percussionist who experiments with Latin America’s traditional folk music as well as elements of jazz, classical music and improvisation.
For folk venues, Click here.
Ballet & Modern Dance
How many cities can boast of packing stadiums with crowds for dance performances? We’re not sure, but Buenos Aires is definitely one of them. The porteño love of all things cultural takes some of the credit, but a larger part goes to BA’s bad boy of ballet, Julio Bocca. And it’s not just because he posed nude with his dance partner in Playboy. Born in 1967, Bocca started dancing at age four and at 14 was soloing with the Teatro Colón’s chamber ballet. In 1985, following stints with troupes in Caracas and Rio de Janeiro, he took the gold medal at Moscow’s International Ballet Competition, and the next year was invited by Mikhail Baryshnikov to join the American Ballet Theatre as principal dancer. In 1990 he formed his own troupe, Ballet Argentino, which has been wildly popular at home and very well received abroad. In 2006 Bocca gave his farewell performance at American Ballet Theater, toured for the last time in 2007 and has since retired from dancing.
Internationally acclaimed dance companies to watch out for are Tangokinesis (www.tangokinesis.com), a contemporary tango group that’s been around since 1992, Ballet del Mercosur and Ballet Concierto; the latter two mix classical with contemporary productions. More experimental troupes that combine dance with theater include El Descueve, Grupo Krapp and Compañia Contenido Bruto.
You can catch dance performances ranging from classical ballet to flamenco, Middle Eastern and all varieties of modern dance at venues such as the venerable Colón, Teatro Avenida and Teatro San Martín (which has its own ballet company: Ballet Contemporáneo del Teatro San Martín).
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LITERATURE
You can’t talk about Argentine literature without mentioning the influential epic poem by José Hernández, Martín Fierro (1872). Not only did this story about a gaucho outlaw lay the foundations of Argentine gauchesco literary tradition, but it also inspired the name of the short-lived but important literary magazine of the 1920s that published avant-garde works based on the ‘art for art’s sake’ principle.
Many of the greatest lights of Argentine literature called Buenos Aires home and all but one had been extinguished by the end of the 20th century. The light that burned brightest was without doubt Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), one of the foremost writers of the 20th century. A prolific author and an insatiable reader, Borges possessed an intellect that seized on difficult questions and squeezed answers out of them. Though super-erudite in his writing, he was also such a jokester that it’s a challenge to tell when he’s being serious and when he’s pulling your leg (though often it’s a case of both at once). From early on one of his favorite forms was the scholarly analysis of nonexistent texts, and more than once he found himself in trouble for perpetrating literary hoaxes and forgeries. A few of these are contained in his Universal History of Iniquity (1935), a book that some point to as the origin of magic realism in Latin American literature.
Borges’ dry, ironic wit is paired (in his later work) with a succinct, precise style that is a delight to read. His paradoxical Ficciones (1944) – part parable, part fantasy – blurs the line between myth and truth, underscoring the concept that reality is only a matter of perception and the number of possible realities is infinite. Other themes that fascinated Borges were the nature of memory and dreams, labyrinths, and the relationship between the reader, the writer and the written piece. Collected Fictions (1999) is a complete set of his stories.
Though he received numerous honors in his lifetime – including the Cervantes Prize, the Legion of Honor and an OBE – Borges was never conferred the Nobel. He joked of this in typical fashion: ‘Not granting me the Nobel Prize has become a Scandinavian tradition. Since I was born they have not been granting it to me.’
Julio Cortázar (1914–84) is, after Borges, probably the author best known to readers outside Argentina. He was born in Belgium of Argentine parents, moved to Buenos Aires at age four and died in self-imposed exile in Paris at the age of 70. His stories frequently plunge their characters out of everyday life into surreally fantastic situations. One such story was adapted into the film Blow-Up by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni. Cortázar’s novel Hopscotch takes place simultaneously in Buenos Aires and Paris and requires the reader to first read the book straight through, then read it a second time, ‘hopscotching’ through the chapters in a prescribed but nonlinear pattern for a completely different take on the story.
The last surviving member of Borges’ literary generation is Ernesto Sábato (b 1911), whose complex and uncompromising novels have been extremely influential on later Argentine literature. The Tunnel (1948) is Sábato’s engrossing existentialist novella of a porteño painter so obsessed with his art that it distorts his relationship to everything and everyone else.
Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914–99) and Borges were close friends and occasional collaborators. Bioy’s sci-fi novella The Invention of Morel (1940) not only gave Alain Resnais the plot for his classic film Last Year at Marienbad, it also introduced the idea of the holodeck decades before Star Trek existed.
Manuel Puig’s (1932–90) first love was cinema, and much of his writing consists solely of dialogue, used to marvelous effect. Being openly gay and critical of Perón did not help his job prospects in Argentina so Puig spent many years in exile. His novel The Buenos Aires Affair (1973) is a page-turner delving into the relationship between murderer and victim (and artist and critic), presented as a deconstructed crime thriller. His most famous work is Kiss of the Spider Woman (1976), a captivating story of a relationship that develops between two men inside an Argentine prison; it was made into the 1985 Oscar-winning film of the same name, starring William Hurt.
Federico Andahazi’s first novel, The Anatomist, caused a stir when published in 1997. Its ticklish theme revolves around the ‘discovery’ of the clitoris by a 16th-century Venetian who is subsequently accused of heresy. Andahazi (b 1963) based his well-written book on historical fact, and manages to have some fun while still broaching serious subjects. His latest book is the prize-wining El Conquistador (2006), a historical novel about an Aztec youth who ‘discovers’ Europe before Columbus reaches America.
Ricardo Piglia (b 1941) is one of Argentina’s most well-known contemporary writers who writes hard-boiled fiction and is best known for his socially minded crime novels with a noir touch, such as Artificial Respiration (1980), The Absent City (1992) and Money to Burn (1997).
Another prolific writer is Tomás Eloy Martínez (b 1934) whose The Perón Novel (1988), a fictionalized biography of the controversial populist leader and its sequel, Santa Evita (1996) which traces the worldwide travels of Evita’s embalmed corpse, were both huge hits. His latest, The Tango Singer (2004), pays homage to tango and Borges.
Two American expats have made an imprint on the BA literature scene. Anna Kazumi Stahl wrote Flores de un solo día (2001) in rioplatense (a variety of Spanish spoken in the Río de la Plata region), a novel about an American girl who has lived in Buenos Aires from the age of eight with her mute Japanese mother. Marina Palmer’s Kiss and Tango (2005) tells a largely autobiographical story about a woman who drops her high-powered advertising job in New York to immerse herself in the seductive world of tango and Buenos Aires milongas.
Of the younger generation of Argentine writers, two names are the talk of the town – Washington Cucurto and Gabriela Bejerman. Cucurto runs Eloísa Cartonera (www.eloisacartonera.com.ar), a small publishing house that releases books by young authors made of recycled cardboard collected by the city’s cartoneros. Bejerman, a multimedia artist who launched a music career as Gaby Bex, recently released an album which incorporates some of her poetry with electro music. Other names to watch out for are Andrés Newman, Oliverio Coelho and Pedro Mairal.
The poetry scene in Buenos Aires is booming, too, with many young wordsmiths, and readings practically every night of the week. Some of the spots that feature poetry readings are Belleza y Felicidad gallery (www.bellezayfelicidad.com.ar) in Almagro, CasaBrandon (www.brandongayday.com.ar) in Villa Crespo and Centro Cultural Pachamama (Argañaraz 22) in Almagro. Poetry-related events are listed on these two websites (in Spanish): www.poesiaurbana.com.ar and www.paginadepoesia.com.ar. An interesting annual event is the International Meeting of Experimental, Sound & Visual Poetry (www.poesiavisual.com.ar), now in its ninth year, with poets showcasing their experiments with poetry and various media, including video and sound.
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THEATER
Theater is huge in Buenos Aires. The city’s venues number more than 100, and annual attendance is in the hundreds of thousands. While productions range from classic plays to multimedia performances and lavish cabarets, the acting tends to be of a professional level across the board.
The city’s vigorous theater community began a few years after BA became the capital in 1776, and continued blooming in the 19th century. The first form to become popular was circo criollo, colorful circus performance featuring trapeze artists, clowns and jugglers and playing with distinctly South American themes; the most famous work was Juan Moreira, about a gaucho persecuted by the law. Then came the sainete, informal grotesque drama focusing on immigrants and their dilemmas; its biggest proponent was Alberto Vacarezza. These days sainete is undergoing a revival, with theater groups like Teatro Escuela de Buenos Aires performing them around town. Formally, theater really took off in the late 19th century through the artistic and financial efforts of the Podestá family and playwrights such as Florencio Sánchez, Gregorio de Laferrere and Roberto Payró. It was in the 1980s that the theater community started breaking the traditional norms that spawned the avant-garde movement so prevalent in Argentina today. Two theaters instrumental in this break were Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas (Click here) and the now-extinct Parakultural.
Argentina’s most famous playwright is probably Juan Carlos Gené, a past director of the Teatro General San Martín who now runs Celcit (Centro Latinoamericano de Creación e Investigación Teatral; see the boxed text Click here). Some of the more established contemporary directors and playwrights in the off-Corrientes scene are Ricardo Bartis, Rafael Spregelburd, Federico León, Mauricio Kartun and Daniel Veronese. The rising stars of Argentine theater are Mariana Chaud, Matías Gandolfo, Mariano Pensotti, Santiago Gobernori, Matías Feldman and Lola Arias.
Unlike stage actors in some countries, those in Argentina seem to move seamlessly between stage, film and TV. Perhaps performers like Norma Leandro, Federico Luppi and Cecilia Roth feel less self-conscious about it since the Argentine public is smaller and work opportunities are fewer than in entertainment centers such as London, New York and Los Angeles.
Argentine theater is still having its love affair with European playwrights such as Beckett and Chekhov. The best of the classic theater can be seen at Teatro General San Martín (Click here) and Teatro Nacional Cervantes (Click here).
Av Corrientes (between Avs 9 de Julio and Callao) is the traditional theater district of Buenos Aires – equivalent to New York’s Broadway or London’s West End – but theater companies and venues large and small are found throughout the city. Indeed, Av Corrientes has seen better days, and some theatergoers prefer to attend off-Corrientes (alternative/independent theater) shows; but don’t be confused by the theater on Av Corrientes named Off Corrientes. The term has been around at least since 1982, the year Juan José Campanella (who later became a major figure in Argentine cinema) wrote and produced the play of the same name. The term ‘off-off Corrientes’ has entered the lexicon as well.
In recent years there has been an upswing of independent theater troupes who stage improvisational experimental works, some in their own theaters, mainly in Palermo, Abasto, Almagro and San Telmo, and some in one-off unconventional venues. For a list of the best of these independent theaters, Click here. Other offbeat troupes and shows to catch are El Teatro Sanitario de Operaciones (TSO), El Ojo del Panoptico, El Descuve and Grupo Ojcuro.
The 1980s also spawned a movement of teatro callejero (street theater) that is still popular today and can be seen in plazas, parks and sometimes even on the subway. The groups to watch out for are La Runfla, Grupo Boedo Antiguo, Brazo Largo and Las Chicas del Blanco. In the last five years an increasing number of theater people have been going solo, which has given rise to a type of clandestine theater – writers and directors producing their own works in alternative spaces with minimal costs and without permits. Many are staged in private homes and mostly advertised by word-of-mouth. On occasion some of these performances will be listed on www.alternativateatral.com (in Spanish), the best source of information about independent theater.
Another popular movement in Argentina that got international fame through the Broadway performance of De la Guarda is circo moderno. This combination of traditional circus and contemporary dance and theater features a lot of aerial action, acrobatics and no words – great for those who don’t speak Spanish. Watch out for shows by La Arena group (their last hit, Sanos y Salvos, was performed in various venues around BA); Mamushka production at Club de Trapecistas (www.clubdetrapecistas.com.ar, in Spanish); and performances by Brenda Angiel Aerial Dance Company (www.aerialdance.com).
Also worth checking out are community-orientated theater groups in Buenos Aires, who work with the people of the barrios in staging their plays. The most notable is the long-running Grupo de Teatro Catalinas Sur (www.catalinasur.com.ar) – who have their own venue in La Boca – and Circuito Cultural Barracas (www.ccbarracas.com.ar) – who have been throwing a theatrical wedding party for the last seven years, with professional actors and theatergoers celebrating together.
The theater season is liveliest in winter, from June through August, but performances are on tap year-round. Many of the most popular shows move to the provincial beach resort of Mar del Plata for the summer.
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FILM
Buenos Aires is at the center of the Argentine film industry, which despite the hardships caused by an acute lack of funding generated a wave of directors and films of the New Argentine Cinema. While this movement can’t be pinned down as a school of cinema, as it includes a hodgepodge of themes and techniques, it is certainly a new movement of filmmaking that has been attracting international attention, earning awards and screenings at festivals in New York, Berlin, Rotterdam and Cannes. It’s also a hot topic on festival panels, at dinner parties and in Buenos Aires cafés. Sadly, much of the homegrown production is more acclaimed abroad than in Argentina, where people are generally more drawn to multiplexes that show Hollywood flicks and romantic comedies. Perhaps it’s because these art-house films deal with themes that are too close to home – such as survival, alienation, search for identity and suppressed sexuality.
The film that’s considered to have spearheaded the New Argentine Cinema is Rapado by Martín Rejtman, a minimalist 1992 feature that for the first time pushed the boundaries in a country where films were generally heavy with bad dialogue. In the late 1990s the government, facing a recession and foreign debt, held back funds gained from entertainment taxes that by law should have subsidized film schools and the movie industry. Despite this, two films ignited ‘the new wave’ – the low-budget Pizza, Birra, Faso (Pizza, Beer, Cigarettes) in 1998 by Adrián Caetano and Bruno Stagnaro (Click here), and Pablo Trapero’s award-winning Mundo Grúa (Crane World) in 1999, a black-and-white portrait of Argentina’s working-class struggles. Trapero went on to become one of Argentina’s foremost filmmakers, whose credits include El Bonaerense (Click here), the ensemble road movie Familia Rodante (Rolling Family) in 2004 and his 2006 film, Nacido y Criado (Born and Bred), a stark story about a Patagonian man’s fall from grace.
With the economy melting down in 2001, Argentine audiences dwindled and production costs shot up. The effects of the crisis on the national psyche have been explored at great length by the country’s filmmakers in a torrent of dramas and documentaries that rivals the amount of output on the Dirty War and its aftermath. The country continued to turn out new talent from its many film schools, including the Universidad del Cine de Buenos Aires. Some of these newcomers created enough buzz with their bare-bones productions to get future projects bankrolled by foreign sources. Others took lucrative employment abroad, while many others just got by as best they could. A ray of hope shone through in March 2004, when President Kirchner announced that the government would repay the three years of subsidies it had held back and would exempt moviemakers from paying duty on imported film stock.
So the New Argentine Cinema kept and keeps on growing. One of its brightest stars is Daniel Burman, Argentina’s answer to Woody Allen, who deals with the theme of identity in the character of a young Jew in modern-day Buenos Aires. His films include Esperando al Mesíah (Waiting for the Messiah, 2000), El Abrazo Partido (Lost Embrace, 2004) and Derecho de Familia (Family Law, 2006). Burman’s other claim to fame is his co-production of Walter Salles’ Che Guevara–inspired The Motorcycle Diaries.
Another director to have made a mark on Argentina cinema is the late Fabián Bielinsky, who died of a heart attack at age 47 in 2006. He left behind a small but powerful body of work that includes his award-winning feature Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens; Click here), which even inspired a 2004 Hollywood remake, Criminal, starring Diego Luna and Maggie Gyllenhaal. His last film, the 2005 neo-noir flick El Aura, screened at Sundance and was the official Argentine entry for the 2006 Oscars.
Lucrecia Martel, who doesn’t like to be labeled a New Argentine Cinema director, has left an indelible trace on Argentina’s contemporary cinema. Her 2001 debut, La Ciénaga (The Swamp), and the 2004 follow-up, La Niña Santa (The Holy Girl), both set in Martel’s native Salta province, deal with the themes of social decay, Argentine bourgeois and sexuality in the face of Catholic guilt. Another acclaimed director, Carlos Sorin, takes us to the deep south of Argentina in two of his neorealist flicks, the 2002 Historias Mínimas (Minimal Stories) and the 2004 Bombón el Perro (Bombón the Dog).
Juan José Campanella’s El Hijo de la Novia (Son of the Bride) received an Oscar nomination for best foreign-language film in 2001. His 2004 award-winning film Luna de Avellaneda (Moon of Avellaneda) is a masterful story about a social club and those who try to save it.
Other noteworthy films include Sandra Gugliotta’s bust-out 2002 directorial debut Un Día de Suerte (A Lucky Day; see above); Un Oso Rojo (A Red Bear, 2002) by Israel Adrián Caetano; La Libertad (Freedom, 2001) and Los Muertos (The Dead, 2004) by Lisandro Alonso; Roma (2004) by Adolfo Aristarain; Iluminados por El Fuego (Enlightened by Fire, 2006) by Tristan Bauer; and Mientras Tanto (Meanwhile, 2006) by Diego Leman. Two of the latest hit directors are Alexis Dos Santos with Glue (2006), a coming-of-age story about a sexually ambivalent adolescent, and Lucía Puenzo (daughter of Luis Puenzo) with XXY, a tale of a 15-year-old hermaphrodite that won multiple awards at Cannes in 2007.
Interesting foreign-made films that deal with Buenos Aires and Argentina are Evita (1986) by Alan Parker, a flick that outraged many Argentines, in part because Madonna played the title role of their revered idol. The beautifully shot and poetic 1997 gay romance Happy Together by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai has great Buenos Aires images and a terrific soundtrack. On the documentary front, don’t miss The Take, the 2004 Canadian documentary by Naomi Klein (of No Logo fame) and Avi Lewis, a story of workers who reclaim control of a closed auto plant in suburban Buenos Aires and turn it into a cooperative.
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VISUAL ARTS
Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis was a mixed blessing for the visual artists of Buenos Aires. While the tough times made it even harder to earn a living from art, they also triggered a tidal wave of ideas and output that has largely swept aside the ‘official arbiters’ of public taste. Artists have been banding together for mutual support, increasingly engaging one another and the public in dialogues (often of a political nature) that generate further ideas and projects.
The sense that ‘we’ve all been through this together’ has drawn the public and the artists closer, and helped break the tyranny of the austere gallery and conservative critics dictating what’s acceptable. The alternative art scene in BA was going strong before the crash but has really taken off since. You can now find galleries, exhibits and art events in the most unlikely places. The influx of foreign visitors, eager to pick up quality works at bargain prices, has helped things along. The day may indeed come when Buenos Aires’ greatest innovators in visual arts no longer need to shop their works abroad to make it big.
As an example, porteño painter Guillermo Kuitca (b 1961), who lives and works in BA, did not exhibit in his home town from 1989 until 2003, when the city’s modern art museum put on a retrospective. Kuitca is known for his imaginative techniques that include the use of digital technology to alter photographs, maps and other images and integrate them into larger-themed works. His work is on display at major international collections including the Met, MoMa and the Tate; he had solo and group shows at key art expos such as the Venice Biennale in 2007.
Another artist who gained fame at home and abroad in his lifetime is Antonio Berni (1905–81). Berni would sometimes visit shantytowns and collect materials to use in his works. Various versions of his theme Juanito Laguna Bañándose (Juanito Laguna Washing) – a protest against social and economic inequality – have been commanding wallet-busting prices at auctions.
One of the more interesting contemporary artists is Roberto Jacoby, who has been active in diverse fields since the 1960s, from organizing socially flavored multimedia shows to setting up audiovisual installations. His most famous work, Darkroom (www.darkroom.org.ar), is a video performance piece with infrared technology meant for a single spectator; it was exhibited in Malba in 2005. Other internationally recognized artists who experiment with various media are Buenos Aires–born, New York–based Liliana Porter, who imaginatively plays with video, paintings, 3D prints, photos and an eclectic collection of knickknacks; Graciela Sacco, whose politically and socially engaging installations often use public space as their setting; and the photographer Arturo Aguiar, known for playing with light and shadow in his mysterious works. Another artist to be aware of is Marcelo Bordese, whose paintings feature a medley of sexuality and religion in a disquieting yet captivating manner. Also watch out for young BA photographer Sebastián Friedman and his portrait photography that brings to light Argentina’s social issues.
In recent years Buenos Aires has experienced a growth of small galleries focused on showcasing local up-and-coming talent, in addition to more established Argentine and international artists. These include Belleza y Felicidad (www.bellezayfelicidad.com.ar); El Borde (
4777-4573; Uriarte 1356; 
Tues-Sat 3-8pm); Appetite; Arte x Arte; and Lila Mitre (www.lilamitre-arte.com).
Buenos Aires has also seen a rise in urban art interventions, a movement of diverse activist artists whose work calls attention to social and urban issues in the city’s public spaces. The most prominent figure is Marino Santa María (www.marino-santamaria.com.ar, in Spanish), whose award-winning Proyecto Calle Lanín is a must-see; it’s a series of colorful murals along the narrow Calle Lanín (between Brandsen until Suarez) in the up-and-coming artist neighborhood of Barracas. Santa María is now a hot commodity, and his urban interventions are being commissioned in other places around BA and the rest of Argentina. A more controversial and politically engaging group is Mujeres Publicas (www.mujerespublicas.com.ar, in Spanish) who are fighting for women’s rights through a variety of public art interventions, such as posting attention-grabbing posters; one of them said ¡Soy feliz, descubrí mi clitorís!’(I’m happy, I found my clitoris!).
BUENOS AIRES STREET ART BOOM
The city has a number of street art collectives, the most famous of which are Bs As Stencil, Burzaco Stencil and Fase. Some artists, such as Pum Pum (whose work can be seen on the walls of Mundo Bizarro ) and Dani Dan (danidan.com.ar), have become celebrities on the underground street art circuit. To check out the captivating work by these and other local artists, head to Hollywood in Cambodia (www.hollywoodincambodia.com.ar; Thames 1885; 5-9pm Thu-Sun), a Palermo Viejo gallery that specializes in street art.
Some works by late artists you might want to check out are the restored ceiling murals of Antonio Berni, Lino Spilimbergo and others in the Galerías Pacífico shopping center Click here in the Microcentro. The late Benito Quinquela Martín, who put the working-class barrio of La Boca on the artistic map, painted brightly colored oils of life in the factories and on the waterfront. Xul Solar, a multitalented phenomenon who was a good friend of Jorge Luis Borges, painted busy, Klee-inspired dreamscapes. The former homes of both Quinquela and Solar are now museums showcasing their work.
To find out about current exhibits and openings, check out the following websites and blogs (all in Spanish): www.artistasdebuenosaires.blogspot.com, www.ramona.org.ar and www.arsomnibus.com.ar. The best times to be in BA if you want to discover the art world is during arteBA Click here and the annual La Noche de los Museos (Gallery Nights; ).
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SCULPTURE
Given its European origins, official public art in BA tends toward hero worship and the pompously monumental, expressed through equestrian statues of military figures like José de San Martín, Justo José de Urquiza and Julio Argentino Roca. Many have prominent positions in Buenos Aires’ parks and plazas, especially in the neighborhood of Palermo. The median strips of Avenida 9 de Julio are another good – albeit busy – place to see some of the city’s most prominent outdoor sculptures.
Among the most well-known contemporary sculptors is León Ferrari (b 1920), whose artwork deals with antireligious and anti-American political themes (he likes using cockroaches as symbols for the US). His most famous piece is Western and Christian Civilization (1964), which depicts Jesus Christ crucified on a fighter jet; his arms span the aircraft’s wings as he holds a missile in each of his hands. The artist had to flee to Brazil during the military regime in 1976, but returned in 1991. His 2004 retrospective at the Centro Cultural Recoleta was briefly shut down due to a lawsuit by a Catholic priest, only to re-open to huge lines of people trying to see the controversial work. Despite his advanced age, Ferrari still occasionally exhibits in BA and abroad.
Another sculptor who has inspired political controversy is Alberto Heredia (1924–2001), whose pieces ridicule the solemnity of official public art and critique Argentine society and religion. Heredia’s powerful El Caballero de la Máscara depicts a 19th-century caudillo (strongman) as a headless horseman. During the military dictatorship of 1976–83, this sculpture could not be exhibited under its original title El Montonero, which authorities thought implied associations with guerrilla forces. Also overtly political is Juan Carlos Distéfano (b 1933), who chose years of exile in Brazil while working on antigovernment themes. Distéfano used rich, textural surfaces of polyester, glass, fiber and resins to achieve colorful surfaces on his sometimes disturbing themes.
The late Rogelio Yrurtia’s (1879–1950) works deal sympathetically with the struggles and achievements of working people; see his masterpiece Canto al Trabajo on the Plazoleta Olazábal (Av Paseo Colón) in San Telmo. Many of Yrurtia’s smaller pieces are displayed at his own museum Click here in Belgrano, along with other notable sculptors’ artworks. The internationally renowned kinetic sculptures of Paris-based Julio le Parc (b 1928) mesmerize with their visual tricks achieved through the way light reflects on polished surfaces. For comic relief, the grotesque papier-mâché sculptures (made from trash and old books) of Yoël Novoa, who’s been called ‘the paper alchemist’, appeal to audiences of almost any age or political persuasion.
Strong women sculptors include Norma D’Ippolito, who has won over 20 artistic awards and works mostly with Carrara marble, creating contemporary designs that often incorporate the human figure. Her Homage to Raoul Wallenberg honors the Swedish diplomat who helped Jews in WWII; several copies are on display at different embassies in Buenos Aires. Lucia Pacenza is another prize-winning artist who also specializes in marble sculptures, created mostly as outdoor urban pieces. She studied in Europe, Mexico and the US and has art installations in countries as far away as Australia. Another notable Argentine female sculptor is Claudia Aranovich, who converts diverse materials such as transparent resins, cast aluminum, glass and cement into organic shapes and natural portraits.
Note the prominent and beautiful sculpture Floralis Genérica Click here in Recoleta’s Plaza Naciones Unidas. Created by architect Eduardo Catalano, this 18-ton metal flower closes up its giant petals at night.
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ARCHITECTURE
Care for a colonial cabildo (town hall)? Fancy some fine French folderol, or do you prefer a pink palace? Perhaps a plethora of pastel-painted houses? Or just a simple block of flats? Buenos Aires still holds examples of many an architectural style in vogue at one time or another throughout the city’s life. It has some amazing one-offs as well. You’ll find old and new juxtaposed in sometimes jarring and often enchanting ways (occasionally in the same structure), though the new has been asserting itself more and more in recent years, and on a grander scale than ever before.
No trace remains of the modest one-story adobe houses that sprang up along the mouth of the Riachuelo following the second founding of Buenos Aires in 1580. Many of them were occupied by traffickers of contraband, as the Spanish Crown forbade any direct export or import of goods from the settlement. The restrictions made the price of imported building materials prohibitively high, which kept things simple, architecturally speaking, since local materials left a lot to be desired.
The houses stayed simple and the streets remained unpaved as BA grew slowly until 1776, when the Bourbon Crown decreed the creation of the new Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, with Buenos Aires as capital. Now things started moving faster, and at the hub of the activity lay what is today known as the Plaza de Mayo.
In the colonial scheme the street grid centered on the main plaza, which was surrounded by the town hall, cathedral and other important buildings. Arranged around the main plaza satellite-fashion were the various barrios, or neighborhoods, each with their own church, which usually shared its name with the barrio. Many towns in Latin America founded during the colonial period retain this layout at their centers.
Buenos Aires’ Cabildo (old town hall, Click here) is a fair example of colonial architecture, although its once plaza-spanning colonnades were severely clipped by the construction of Av de Mayo and the diagonals feeding into it. The last of the Cabildo’s multiple remodels was a 1940s restoration to its original look, minus the colonnades. Most of the other survivors from the colonial era are churches. Sharing Plaza de Mayo with the Cabildo, the Catedral Metropolitana was begun in 1752 but not finished until 1852, by which time it had acquired its rather secular-looking neoclassicist facade.
Many examples of post-independence architecture (built after 1810) can be found in the barrios of San Telmo, one of the city’s best walking areas, and Montserrat. San Telmo also holds a wide variety of vernacular architecture such as casas chorizos (sausage houses) – so called for their long, narrow shape (some have a 2m frontage on the street); the perfect example is Casa Mínima.
In the latter half of the 19th century, as Argentina’s agricultural exports soared, a lot of money accumulated in Buenos Aires, both in private and government hands. All parties were interested in showing off their wealth by constructing elaborate mansions, public buildings and wide Parisian-style boulevards. Buildings in the first few decades of the boom were done mostly in Italianate style, but toward the end of the 19th century a French influence began to exert itself. Mansard roofs and other elements gave a Parisian look to parts of the city that remains to this day. Tree-lined Palermo Viejo still retains many of the 19th-century single-family homes known as PHs (propiedades horizontales), which gives the neighborhood its distinctive small-town charm.
By the beginning of the 20th century, art nouveau was all the rage, and many delightful examples of the style remain. Some of them, such as the former Confitería del Molino across from the Congreso, are not in such delightful condition, unfortunately.
Among the highlights of the building boom’s first five decades is the presidential palace, known as the Casa Rosada (Pink House, officially Casa de Gobierno; ), created in 1882 by joining a new wing to the existing post office. Others include the showpiece Teatro Colón Click here and the imposing Palacio del Congreso.
The 1920s saw the arrival of the skyscraper to BA, in the form of the 100m-high, 18-story Palacio Barolo. This fabled, rocket-styled building was the tallest in Argentina (and one of the tallest in South America) from its opening in 1923 until the completion of the 30-story art deco Edificio Kavanagh in 1936. The Kavanagh in turn, when finished, was the largest concrete building in the world and remains an impressive piece of architecture. In the 1930s, in Palermo and Recoleta, which until then mainly had PHs, fancy apartment buildings started popping up. This trend would continue intermittently into the 1940s, by which time the city would also have a subway system with multiple lines.
Buenos Aires continued to grow upward and outward during Juan Perón’s spell in power (1946–55). Though the economy flagged, anonymous apartment and office blocks rose in ever greater numbers. Bucking the trend were such oddball buildings as the Banco de Londres on Reconquista, designed in 1959 by Clorindo Testa, whose long architectural career in BA began in the late 1940s. The bank was finished by 1966, but Testa’s Biblioteca Nacional (National Library, Click here) – which must’ve looked pretty groovy to him on the drawing board in 1962 – was hideously dated by the time it opened (following many delays) in 1992. Its style is somewhere between late Offshore Oil Platform and early Death Star.
A heartening trend of ‘architectural recycling’ took off in Buenos Aires in the latter 20th century and continues today, helping to preserve the city’s glorious old structures. Grand mansions have been remodeled (and sometimes augmented) to become luxury hotels, museums and cultural centers. Old markets have been restored to their original glory and then some, to live again as popular shopping malls, such as the Mercado de Abasto and Galerías Pacífico.
At the same time, the first decade of the 21st century has seen an increasingly modern skyline develop in Buenos Aires. Soaring structures of glass and steel tower above earlier efforts, many innovative and quite striking, such as the Edificio Telefónica (originally named Edificio República) on Tucumán between Madero and Bouchard. It was designed by César Pelli, an Argentine native now living in the US, who also did Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers. The ultramodern building is super energy-efficient, and from some angles its shape evokes the hull of a ship. From other views its concave and convex planes give the structure the look of a false front.
One of the most ambitious architectural projects in BA today combines the repurposing of old structures and the construction of ultramodern ones. The ongoing renovation of Puerto Madero has turned dilapidated brick warehouses, silos and mills into smart shops, office buildings, upscale restaurants, luxury hotels and exclusive apartments. The eastern section of Puerto Madero is home to the city’s tallest structure, at 558ft, the Torres El Faro, a pair of joined towers that house fancy apartments. It won’t be the tallest for long, however. Several other towers are under construction and the skyline is slated to become an even busier sight by 2009. Of the architectural gems in this area, the most captivating are Calatrava’s Puente de la Mujer and the four-story glass-domed Museo Fortabat by Uruguayan-born architect Rafael Viñoli.
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ENVIRONMENT & PLANNING
Buenos Aires has its substantial share of problems faced by any major metropolis – noise and air pollution, urban sprawl, and tons of waste. Environmental and urban planning issues have finally been acknowledged in recent years and the city administration is slowly attempting to solve them.
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THE LAND
At the continental edge of Argentina’s fertile pampas heartland, Buenos Aires sits on an almost completely level plain of wind-borne loess and river-deposited sediments once covered by lush native grasses. The heart of the capital sprawls along the west bank of the Río de la Plata, which (despite every porteño’s claim that it is the world’s widest river) is more like a huge estuary. It ranges from 40km wide inland to over 200km at the mouth and discharges thick sediments along the coast and far out into the South Atlantic Ocean. Buenos Aires’ highest elevation is only 25m and much of the city is barely above sea level.
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GREEN BUENOS AIRES
You can jokingly refer to ‘Buenos Aires’ (literally, ‘good airs’) more accurately as ‘Malos Aires’ (bad airs). Indeed, air pollution can be astoundingly bad, and especially noticeable when you’re walking down a street with a line of diesel buses roaring black clouds right into your path. The city’s taxi fleet of over 40,000 vehicles doesn’t help air quality either, nor do the hundreds of thousands of private vehicles clogging BA’s streets every day. After all, this is not a city where emissions controls are taken seriously. Luckily enough for Buenos Aires, strong winds and rains frequently clear the air.
The center of Buenos Aires has hardly any rivers, which is fine since, if they existed, they’d probably be heavily polluted. La Boca’s Riachuelo is the city’s main waterway and so thick with pollutants that it looks and smells viscous; cleanup has been promised but has ever so slowly progressed. Noise pollution is another big problem, with unmuffled vehicles making even more of a racket by liberal use of the horn.
From an ecological standpoint the biggest and brightest success story in the city is the Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur, located east of downtown. This little marshy paradise was originally created from landfill as the base for a city expansion, but during economic and political stalls over the past two decades it was taken over by indigenous marshy vegetation, migrating birds and aquatic rodents. Despite arson attempts, most likely by those with interests in developing the prime real estate, this green success story survives to give porteños an idea of what the Buenos Aires riverside used to be like hundreds of years ago.
Buenos Aires creates millions of tons of garbage annually, and past feeble stabs at official recycling has only partially reduced this quantity. Most recycling is now done by cartoneros (Click here), garbage-pickers who’ve virtually created a new vocation brought about by necessity after Argentina’s most recent economic crisis.
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URBAN PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT
Buenos Aires’ urban planning and development is not an issue that concerns most Argentine politicians, unless it’s an election year. More often than not, promises made during campaigning go flying out the window following victory. It almost seems a fortunate thing that much of the city was constructed and developed in the late 1800s, when times were good and money flowed like wine. This was a time when Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world and heavy immigration brought skilled labor and organized ideas from old Europe. Even into the early 1900s, large parks and plazas were put into place and wide avenues constructed, along with the subway and train lines.
In the past few decades economic times have gotten tougher, the population has risen and urban sprawl has seen the city’s suburbs stretch for endless hundreds of kilometers; Buenos Aires has now become one of the most populated cities on the planet. Shantytowns or villas miserias, most of them located in barrios furthest from the center, hold the poorest of the city’s inhabitants; some pop up even in the inner city, such as the sizeable shambles behind Retiro Bus Station. Puerto Madero, however, is one relatively new development that has worked out well for Buenos Aires and now looks great to boot. Its eastern section is the fastest-developing urbanization area, where several tall towers with luxury apartments and offices are underway and slated for completion by 2009.
Certain sections of the city that are often visited by tourists, such as San Telmo and Palermo Viejo, have also seen a gentrification process take place in the past few years. Quite a few high-rise buildings have sprung up in Palermo Viejo – with more going up – causing protests among the neighbors who prefer to retain the area’s traditionally low-rise aspect.
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GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
The politics of Buenos Aires is entangled with that of Argentina in general, because most national government institutions – not to mention the economic and financial sectors and a large percentage of the electorate – reside here.
The city of Buenos Aires (also known as the Capital Federal) was given the status of federal district (similar to that of Mexico City and Washington, DC) in 1880. Though at that point it began to function independently from the surrounding province of Buenos Aires (whose capital was moved to La Plata), the city’s residents didn’t have a lot of say in its administration; the president of the republic appointed the mayor.
Argentina’s constitution was reformed in the 1990s, giving the federal district the freedom to elect its mayor, and in 1996 Fernando de la Rúa of the Radical Party became Buenos Aires’ first mayor elected by majority vote. De la Rúa went on to serve as Argentina’s president until the economic crash of late 2001 drove him from office. The current mayor is Mauricio Macri, owner of the Boca Juniors football club and right-wing businessman, who was elected in 2007 after winning 60% of the vote.
The reforms also gave Buenos Aires a 60-member Poder Legislativo (legislature), elected by proportional representation to four-year terms, with the possibility of reelection for an additional term. Half the seats are up for election every two years. After completing two consecutive terms, neither the mayor nor any legislator may run for the same office again until four years have elapsed.
At the national level the federal district chooses three senators to represent it in the national chamber of deputies, the same number that each of Argentina’s 23 provinces is allowed.
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MEDIA
NEWSPAPERS & MAGAZINES
Argentina is South America’s most literate country, supporting a wide spectrum of newspapers and magazines despite continuing economic crisis. The capital is home to more than half a dozen nationwide dailies, several of them now online, and some with unambiguous political leanings. The centrist and somewhat tabloidlike Clarín (www.clarin.com) has one of the largest circulations of any newspaper in the Spanish-speaking world, and publishes an excellent Sunday cultural section. La Nación (www.lanacion.com.ar), founded in 1870 by former president Bartolomé Mitre, is another very popular and moderate paper revered by a more conservative readership. La Prensa (www.laprensa.com.ar) is equally venerable, but much less influential.
The tabloid Página 12 (www.pagina12.com.ar) provides refreshing leftist perspectives, plenty of popular opinions and a good weekend pullout. Ámbito Financiero (www.ambitoweb.com), the morning voice of the capital’s financial community, also has a stellar entertainment and cultural section. El Cronista (www.cronista.com) and Buenos Aires Económico are its rivals. All appear weekdays only.
The English-language daily Buenos Aires Herald (www.buenosaireshelald.com) covers Argentina and the world from an international perspective, emphasizing commerce and finance. A relatively new English-language paper also aimed at travelers and expatriates is the Argentimes (www.argentimes.com), which provides in-depth articles about BA and Argentina. Also keep an eye out for the Traveller’s Guru (www.travellersguru.com), a Patagonia traveler’s newspaper with a new Buenos Aires version – and the bi-monthly BAInsider (www.bainsidermag.com), a pocket magazine with fun topics on the city. Argentinisches Tageblatt is a German-language weekly that appears on Saturdays.
North American and European newspapers such as The New York Times, USA Today, the Guardian and Le Monde are available at kiosks on Florida. Magazines such as Time, Newsweek and the Economist are also fairly easy to obtain.
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RADIO
Dozens of FM stations specialize in music, news and information for everyone. La 2x4 FM 92.7 (www.la2x4.com.ar) has tango; FM 98.7 (www.radionacional.gov.ar) has Argentine folk; FM 97.4 has classical music; FM 95.9 has national/international rock and pop; FM 98.3 has Argentine rock nacional only; and FM 97.1 has BBC in English (from noon to 5pm). Radio 10 (AM 710) is something like the National Enquirer of radio stations, while La Colifata (www.lacolifata.org, in Spanish), literally ‘The Crazy One’ on FM 100.1, is a program that runs from 2:30pm to 7:30pm on Saturdays; it’s operated by psychiatric patients from an asylum.
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TELEVISION
Privatization and the cable revolution have brought a wider variety of programming to the small screen, though prime time still seems overrun with reality shows, bimbo-led dance parties and telenovelas (soap operas).
Argentina’s serial TV murder mystery Epitafios, which has been a smash hit in South America, now airs on HBO with English subtitles. This glossy but captivating story revolves around an ex-cop and a female psychologist who are struggling to track down a vicious serial killer who’s terrorizing a nameless South American city. A fun show to watch is Caiga Quien Caiga, a weekly news roundup that uses hidden cameras, satire and sound effects to comment on current affairs.
In addition to 80 cable channels that include CNN, ESPN, BBC and a variety of European channels, Argentina has five regular channels:
- Canal 2 Also known as América TV (www.america2.com.ar, in Spanish), this channel is heavy on the sports, news and entertainment.
- Canal 7 A state-run channel, it thus claims the lowest ratings; known for its general interest and cultural programming.
- Canal 9 (www.canal9.com.ar, in Spanish) Smut at its best, Canal 9 expresses no shame in using sex to sell; it imports trashy shows such as Top Model and Living with My Ex.
- Canal 11 (www.telefe.com.ar, in Spanish) Also known as Telefé, this channel once boasted Marcelo Tinelli’s long-running Videomatch. Now it’s known for its popular show host transvestite Florencia de la Vega.
- Canal 13 (www.canal13.com.ar, in Spanish) Grupo Clarín’s high-quality channel, offering Caiga Quien Caiga along with the popular news show Telenoche and Roberto Pettinato’s personality show Duro de Domar, the new version of the popular Indomables. In 2006 Tinelli made the move here from Canal 11 and produces TV dramas with his own production company.
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LANGUAGE
Spanish, commonly referred to as castellano, is the official language of Argentina and is spoken throughout the country. Also known as rioplatense (from Río de la Plata), the brand spoken in Buenos Aires has a strong Italian flavor to it, from the sing-song of its intonation to the amount and variety of gesticulation employed. (Among the many ‘Argentine’ jokes told elsewhere in the Spanish-speaking world, one of the kinder ones is ‘If an Argentine falls overboard, how do you prevent him from drowning?…Just keep talking to him.’) Quite a few porteños study English, especially those in tourism and business, though you should never assume.
The practice is slipping these days, but some members of immigrant communities have retained their native language as a badge of identity. For example, literary giant Jorge Luis Borges, whose grandmother was English, learned to read in that language before Spanish. Though Argentina’s largest historical immigrant group was Italian, the language is not as widely spoken (or even understood) as some visitors from the Old Country expect it to be. Speakers of German are numerous enough to support their own weekly newspaper, Argentinisches Tageblatt.
For useful phrases in Argentine Spanish, see the Language chapter Click here.
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RELIGION
Roman Catholicism remains the officially supported religion of Argentina, though the constitution was changed in 1994 to allow non-Catholics to serve as president. And while only a small percentage of Argentines attend mass regularly, you’ll see many porteños exhibiting signs of faith, such as crossing themselves when passing a church (whether they’re walking, riding the bus or zipping along on motorbikes).
Argentina’s national census doesn’t track religious affiliation, so accurate figures are tough to come by, but it’s estimated that Jews and Protestants each account for about 2% of the country’s population. One percent is composed of Muslims, and reputedly the biggest mosque in South America resides in Palermo: Centro Islámico Rey Fahd. Buenos Aires’ Jewish population numbers somewhere between 175,000 and 250,000, having undergone successive waves of emigration: under pro-Nazi Perón, during the Dirty War (when Jews were victimized in disproportionate numbers) and most recently with the economic troubles.
The country has its share of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons and Hare Krishnas. And, as in many other parts of Latin America, evangelical Protestantism is making inroads among traditionally Catholic Argentines – especially within the working class. In some parts of Buenos Aires, street preachers are a common sight, and many former cinemas and storefronts now serve as churches or centers for evangelical gatherings.
Spiritualism and veneration of the dead have remarkable importance in Argentina. Visitors to Recoleta and Chacarita cemeteries in Buenos Aires – vital places for comprehending Argentine religious culture – will see steady processions of pilgrims going to the resting places of icons like Juan and Eva Perón, psychic Madre María and tango singer Carlos Gardel. Followers come to communicate and ask favors by laying their hands on the tombs and leaving arcane offerings (Click here).
TIMELINE
- 1536 Spanish aristocrat Pedro de Mendoza reaches the Río de la Plata and attempts to set up a permanent settlement, only to return to Spain within four years.
- 1776 Buenos Aires becomes capital city of the new Spanish Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, which included what are today Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
- 1806 & 1807 British troops raid the city but are beaten back by the people of Buenos Aires in two battles, now celebrated as La Reconquista (the Reconquest) and La Defensa (the Defense).
- May 25, 1810 In a huge public protest, Buenos Aires declares its independence from Spain and renames the city’s main square Plaza de Mayo to commemorate the occasion.
- 1829 Federalist caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas takes control of Buenos Aires and becomes its governor; the influence of BA increases dramatically during his 23-year reign, before he is overthrown by José de Urquiza.
- 1861 Bartolomé Mitre, the governor of Buenos Aires province, poet and founder of La Nación newspaper, becomes president after defeating Urquiza’s federal forces.
- 1871 Serious shortage of water and adequate sewage systems leads to a severe outbreak of yellow fever that kills more than 10% of the city’s population.
- 1916 Hipólito Yrigoyen, leader of the Radical Party popular with the middle classes, is elected president and introduces minimum wage to counter inflation; he’s re-elected in 1928.
- 1930 Hipólito Yrigoyen is overthrown in a military coup led by General José Félix Uriburu, who stays in power for two years, after which civilian rule is restored.
- 1946 Populist Lieutenant-General Juan Domingo Perón is elected president; Perón and his young wife Evita introduce higher wages and welfare campaigns, and make sweeping changes to the political structure.
- 1955 On June 15, 1955, anti-Peronists within the army use navy aircraft to bomb Peron supporters at Plaza de Mayo, killing 350 people. Some consider this crushed coup d’état a prelude to the Dirty War.
- 1976 The military junta led by Jorge Rafael Videla replaces Isabelita Perón; this marks the beginning of the Dirty War that involved harsh repression and eradication of civilian government.
- 1982 General Leopoldo Galtieri provokes the UK into a war over control of the Falkland Islands (Las Islas Malvinas), but Argentina is easily defeated by the British.
- 1983 The military regime collapses, bringing the Dirty War to an end; civilian government is restored under Radical leader Raúl Alfonsín but he leaves office five months early due to rising inflation problems.
- 1989 Perónist Carlos Menem succeeds Alfonsín as president and overcomes the hyperinflation that reached 197% per month by instituting free-market reforms and triggering an economic boom.
- 1992 & 1994 In 1992 a bomb attack at the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires kills 29 and injures over 200; in 1994, 85 people are killed and over a hundred wounded at a Jewish community center.
- 1999 The mayor of Buenos Aires, Fernando de la Rúa, is voted president of Argentina as a result of dissatisfaction with the corrupt Menem administration; he inherits $114 billion in public debt.
- 2001 Argentina commits the largest debt default in world history; Argentina’s economy is totally ruined, which sparks massive riots and lootings around the country.
- 2003 Néstor Kirchner – a governor from Patagonia’s province of Santa Cruz – is sworn in with 22% of the vote as Argentina’s president.
- 2006 Argentina settles its $9.5-billion loan to the IMF; the economy is steadily flourishing with an average growth of 8% per year and poverty rates dropping by about 25%.
- 2007 A lawyer, senator and former first lady, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner becomes Argentina’s first woman president elected by popular vote.