The Borges Cultural Center reopened its doors in Pacific Gallerieswith more than a dozen multidisciplinary proposals from art, music, literature, and more. After 26 years of private management by the Fundación de las Artes and almost three years of closure due to the health crisis, the CCB passed into the hands of the Ministry of Culture of the Nation.
The building occupies almost the entire block and was designed for the “Au Bon Marché” store in 1888. In 1946, Antonio Berni, Juan Carlos Castagnino, Manuel Colmeiro with Leopoldo Torres Agüero, Lino Enea Spilimbergo and Demetrio Urruchúa painted the murals of his magnificent Dome. It served multiple uses before its decline and closure. National hystoric monument since 1989, it was recovered and transformed in 1992 into a shopping center. It added side murals by Carlos Alonso, Rómulo Macció, Josefina Robirosa and Guillermo Roux. CC Borges opened three years later. Many remember crossing paths with the King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, during the opening ceremony in 1995.
new stage
After the enhancement of exhibition halls, auditoriums, classrooms, CC Borges offers one more novelty. Its director, Ezequiel Grimson -ex Undersecretary of Cultural Policies of the Province of Buenos Aires- and team have a formidable challenge to program the activities in their 9,200 m2., distributed in three floors. She assigned a place for the store of the Mercado de Artesanias Tradicionales e Innovadoras Argentinas (MATRIA) and another for Fundación Mercedes Sosa, whose inaugural exhibition reviews part of the career of the formidable artist, curated by Álvaro Rufiner. Just a few steps away, “Ayni” exhibits photographs linked to “reciprocity”, people, territory and customs of the country. Starting in the second half of the year, a sector will host the Museum of Oriental Art.
Founded and run by artist and historian Edward Schiaffinothe National museum of fine arts It has permanent rooms since this was its first headquarters between 1895 and 1909. “Fine Arts/Bon Marché”, Cared for by Patricia V. Corsani and Paola Melgarejo, it traces part of its history and exhibits several paintings, such as the magnificent “The Soup of the Poor” (1884) by Reynaldo Giudici. Painted in Venice during his second study trip to Europe, it portrays a group of homeless people who, outside an inn, eat a concoction made with leftovers from the markets for coins. MNBA also exhibits “Inaugurals. Sara Facio” and the creation of the Fine Arts Photographic Collection, with images from the collection gathered by the notable photographer jnext to the Secretariat of Cultural Heritage. The Museum is also part of the “Libero Badii Reserve-Workshop” project.
Lhe management maintained and expanded the space linked to the work and figure of Borges, with a library and reading area. The exhibition “Confabulations. Friendship and creation in Borges (1923-1945)” evidences the initiatives and activities in cultural publications of the great writer and exchanges with other authors and artists, such as his friends Xul Solar and Emilio Pettoruti; organized with the National Library and photos of the Fine Arts, it displays books, texts, projections, videos made by the Jorge Luis Borges International Foundation and a participatory games laboratory: the “lucid tables”.
Julio Bocca Foundation will continue to teach dance here and will also develop activities the Luis Felipe Noé Foundation. Curated by Cecilia Ivanchevich, Noé now participates in “Again you ruined my drawing!”, with four-hand pieces by Juan Astica, Delfina Bourse, Andrea Lamas, Paula Noé Murphy and Eduardo Stupía; the sample has antecedents in the project “The line thinks”, created years ago by Noé and Stupía to revalue the drawing. For its part, in another space you can see the series of sharp collages with which León Ferrari illustrated in 1996, for fascicles of a city newspaper, the 1984 “Never Again Report” of the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP).
The exhibition “Every body is political” is related to activities produced in 2021 by the Palais de Glace and it is focused on works by artists and groups that examine the political dimension of bodies, such as the award-winning photo “Oriel” by Jorge Mónaco, from the series “Dissident Bodies” (2020).
About to be lifted, to display the 2021 edition, the 32nd Annual Exhibition of Argentine Photojournalism is another temporary one organized together with the Association of Graphic Reporters of the Argentine Republic (ARGRA), currently chaired by Eva Cabrera. The 212 photographs from 2020 reflect many public and private aspects of that unforgettable year shaken by the pandemic. Daily life, loneliness and absences in the year of confinement but also the before and after, such as the release of Fabián Tablado -the murderer of Carolina Aló-, captured by Sergio Piemonte when he left the Campana prison in February 2020, and the return from the public to the theaters in December 2020 with the revival of the play “Happyland”, with Alejandra Radano, portrayed in the deposits of the Teatro San Martín by Néstor Grassi.
Image gallery
