A female voice surrounded us.
Long, weighty, soft snakes hung from the rafters of a dark gallery inside the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires. Pieces of fabric had been mounted to the ceiling in a circular pattern so they would hang down to the floor, parallel to one another, and create a mass of texture in the middle of the room. Sound was all around us, emanating from unexpected corners of the gallery, yet the installation was moaning. Upon closer inspection, I understood speakers folded into these fabric pieces hanging from the ceiling. The sounds were whispers, shrieks, hums, and groans. Words weren’t audible. It was like being in a jungle. The kind of jungle that exists in a woman.
The Cecilia Vicuña exhibition Dreaming Water, on view at the MALBA museum, was one of a few striking impressions from my most recent journey to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Never before had I explored a museum exhibition retrospective wherein a single female artist’s body of work filled multiple gallery spaces on multiple floors.
Cecilia Vicuña, a Chilean multidisciplinary artist and writer who began working in the 1960s and is still creating today, is a conduit for Indigenous wisdom and a master of feminine activist expression. I was unfamiliar with her work, save a few of her poems, before visiting the MALBA museum. The exhibition portrayed enormous scope; in addition to the aforementioned floor-to-ceiling installation, Vicuña had installed in the atrium of the museum a second hanging fabric display in myriad blood-red shades towering 100 feet above our heads. There were other galleries where her small, colorful paintings sat quietly next to glass cases housing her poems.
On the museum’s lower floor, she had reincarnated one of her most well-known works, “Precarios,” a collection of tiny, handmade, one-of-a-kind altars crafted from found materials and displayed together on sand, which initially debuted in New York City in 1990. Carefully placed in a web of relation with one another, the altars create an imaginary village representing both the Indigenous past and utopian future.
Vicuña envelopes you in her enormous gestures of womanhood while simultaneously tinkering on a much smaller scale of curiosity. She imagines other, better worlds and does so from every angle, carefully weaving a tapestry of what is possible.
Finding high-quality, modern cuisine in Buenos Aires is challenging. A massive immigration influx at the turn of the 20th century pulled the city in a myriad of opposing culinary directions, suffocating what was once at the root of Argentine — and most undoubtedly Indigenous — culture. It is, however, confirmed that you can still find an excellent steak in town. It’s not simple to reserve a table at the famous Don Julio, a classic parilla part of a larger restaurant group that locals find “mediocre at best” — or so I heard from one of my cabbies.
For a koji-aged oyster steak and arguably the best chimichurri in town, head to Cuatro Perros 1 Livin, a new owner-operated wine bar in Palermo five blocks from Don Julio. Cuatro Perros serves an unfussy yet expertly executed pastiche of bar snacks and small plates, pairing them with affordable, local wines. Don’t skip dessert — Cuatro Perros makes all their ice creams in-house.
Upon leaving the city, I noticed from my taxi window a display behind glass on the street. Brooms clustered together, leaning against the wall behind them as if to rest there for a chat. Some looked to be quite old, while others were more modern. The wall behind was collaged with newspaper clippings and manifestos. The entire display was small and receded quickly from view as my taxi rolled past it over the cobbles. It rests in my memory as a blurry, quiet impression of Buenos Aires, a city that works.
What I mean is that Buenos Aires is busy, and its people are pleasantly at work. Looking out over its Beaux-Arts skyline and silhouettes, it would be easy to imagine oneself in Europe. But the city wakes early. Shopkeepers roll open their creaky gates, delivery trucks backward-beep into position, padlocks knock off their chains, and people swiftly speed walk to work — all before 9 a.m.
Foiled against this norm, a thrift shopkeeper across the street from our AirBnB in San Telmo would raise his gate around 2 p.m. Every afternoon, he would wheel out his $1 rack ($1,000 in Argentine pesos) to entice passersby. I had just returned from walking and eating my way through the morning — mini alfajores from a local wholesale bakery, a jamon y queso empanada fresh from a wood oven, thick-cut papas fritas served with mayonnaise — when I timidly stepped through his door. A dark portal through un-ironed textiles hanging from every level revealed a low-ceilinged Bohemian palace of thrift. The shopkeeper was an older man with a lovely and slow accent. I heard a lilt in his voice and inquired. “Sono mezzo Italiano,” he cooed. After I selected a few pieces, he pointed upstairs for me to try them on. His French bulldog, Zeus, was a pudgy doormat guarding the staircase. Old mirrors, scarves hanging loose from wooden drawers, busts, and tchotchkes bedecked the stairs. An old window behind intricately carved wrought-iron bars lit the bathroom upstairs. A gold-framed mirror on the tile floor reflected a little white chair and the hand sink, where two giant roaches lurked. I was quick to try things on, but sadly nothing fit.
On my way out of the shop, I asked for the brand of one of the pieces I had tried. The shopkeeper’s eyes flashed as he straightened up, “I like it better when I don’t see a brand.”
Josephine LaCosta is a chef, farmer, and writer living in Portland, Oregon. She writes predominantly about food and travel. Local Portland area publishers Penny Press and Minto Press have published her work.