Any visitor to Buenos Aires would agree in that it is the least Panamerican city of Panamerica. Its great attraction to the outside, as well as its own romance with itself, makes it such a self-contained universe that, in a similar way to New York or Mexico City, it exerts its own logic and its own laws. Additionally, the artistic life in Buenos Aires has intensified in recent years, and the amount of spaces, publications and daily events related to the visual arts have grown so much that there is now an intense activity that has attracted many artists from the outside.
Maybe due to these reasons it was hard for us to find a site for the SPU. After one year of negotiations and proposals with a long list of organizations, we ended up arriving to this city without a host. Fortunately, the Foundation START, which produces Ramona magazine and is directed by artist Roberto Jacoby, opened its doors to us, thanks to the recommendation of curator Victoria Noorthoorn.
Despite the little we know about the complex visual art world in Buenos Aires, the one thing that appears self-evident to us is that it is a highly argumentative and verbal community (Ramona, which is a visual arts magazine, is a text-only publication). So it is not surprising that even before the debate we found ourselves in the interesting situation of having a debate about the debate, at a meeting between Jacoby, Noorthoorn, and SPU coordinator Jennifer Flores Sternard. The group speculated and argued over what the different participants would argue, how these comments would be representative (or not) or the Argentinean community, the way in which different political positions will make themselves evident at the discussion, etc. For starters, there are already certain positions formed about the project here. Upon my arrival, one person told me: “I essentially see this as a failed project”. Antonio Muntadas, who happens to be here in Buenos Airs and who saw the first debate in New York, said: “ I see this project as Body Art”. In any case, and whatever way the debate will take place here, we do hope it will be representative of the way in which artists in Buenos Aires see art making in general from their own moment and circumstance.