What about Barrabravas?

Barrabravas intrigue me. Are they hooligans, plain mafia, or what? Originally they certainly were the local barrios soccer team's passionate hinchas or supporters. Now they also unite in the code of violence, expressed machismo, intolerance toward others and obscure connections to the clubs management.
The anthropological gaze of Jose Garriga Zucal at porteño soccer makes it possible to understand more of the circle of passion and personal bonds which are tied between supporters, the social fundament of the violence, machismo and intolerance, and the twirl these values has taken the last few decades in the way of manifesting loyalty to a football team.
Submitting himself as participant observer into the barrabravas of Huracán, he aimed to explore the patrons of the barrabravas, and above all, to find out where the violence of Argentinian soccer is located.
The soccer scene are too complex to deem barrabravas all guilt of violence. They are certainly the most violent, but they are not the only ones. And they are as heterogeneous as the rest of us. Some are robbers, other professionals, some are drug addicts, others do not consume drugs at all. But there is one trait he found which unite; The stamina, the persistence. The heterogenous barrabravas unite here, they are fighters. To become a member, you must fight. You must show yourself. They fight each others, not the other spectators, the players or the management. They do not report to the police. When the Boca hinchas fight the Chacarita hinchas, they keep the trouble internal. Nobodys else's business. That is the code. The code also says not to use weapons, but sometimes they do. Codes exist to be broken. It is like driving on red.
To participate or distance oneself from the barrabravas is a question of class, even though the fascination for violence is the same whithin very different social groups. Barrabravas from River are upper middle class. The political and social idea that violence equals poverty, does not stand.
River and Boca have the largest barrabravas of Buenos Aires, numbering four to five hundred members. Huracán and San Lorenzo numbers between two and three hundred.
The leader of a barrabrava needs more qualificastions than to be a good fighter, he has to know the mechanisms of distribution, and he needs a certain amount of charisma.
It will be interesting to follow the court case of the brothers Alan and William Schlenker. The snob Alan, River barrabravas' leader, is accused of murdering a rivaling River barrabrava.

Now: Economics

December 1st 2001, Noticias published the economist Gabriel Rubinstein's forecast El futuro argentino (The Argentinian Future). Two possible and distinct countries were sketched, with 40 % chance of convertability and growth in the first and 60% likelihood for collapse in the second. Pending set of economical variables were financial pace, deposital freeze, likelihood for default and devaluation, drainage of deposits and bank credits, brutal fall in GNP, dramatic fall of Merval and uncontrollable leaps of the Riesgo Pais.

The forecasts painfully fulfilled themselves. Nothing the like had happened before, and as Rubinstein today says, even the worst scenario for the future cannot come close to the apocalypse of 2001. The dynamics of the scenarios for 2008 are similarly positive and negative, with a 50% probability of normal growth and 50% chance of unstable economy.
The outcome is not only given by governmental desitions to adjust macroeconomic imperfections. It depends as much on producer and consumer sectors, that is, microeconomics. Despite the massive recovery Argentinian economics has had the last years, Rubinstein warns Argentina against relaxing too early:

The high debts at sky high interests North American consumer has acquired, followed by crisis in mortgaging and the housing market, might well affect Argentina through a weakened dollar. The govermental handling of Argentinas US$ 6,2 billion debt to the Paris Club will determine The World Bank's approval of a payment plan when Argentina proves stable. Workers unions with leader Hugo Moyano up front are demanding wage increases scaling up to 25%, driving inflation. And lastly, all of us influence inflation: Can I wait until tomorrow to buy what I want to acquire today? New mobile, better car, plasma television?

A stable economy for 2008 depends on the following variables:

Argentina needs a stable dollar at 3,15-3,20 pesos/dollar, and Banco Central must continue to by dollar to fill national reserves.
Bank deposits must continue to rise and consumer index should be fixed at 7% throughout 2008.
Gas, light, water etc. should not rise above 15% on behalf of the middle class, less for the poor.

Summa summarum; Controlled inflation depending on the consumer's will to brake consumtion, stable dollar, dollar savings by Banco Central, increased investments, price control on behalf of nessecary consumer goods according to Pacto Social should open a stable scenario for next year and futher future.

Let us see what the new secretary of treasure, wonderboy and microeconomist Martín Lousteau will propose. Well aware of the producer/consumer challenge, he claims that Paris Club can wait.

Christmas at Hilton

Midsummer passed leaving the city "India before-monsoon-hot", sweating with 36ºC.
We sneak into the Hilton, luxuriating by the pool with sky-high umbrella drinks and arrogant faces.
That was also the day to commemorate the economic collapse of 2001. December wages never came, the banks ran out of money. Every time the banks run out of money, I feel a chill running down my back.
Christmas eve best spent in a tranquil spa, massaged, chocolate-smeared and trimmed from head to toe.
Later dining on underestimated Mendozan, tannin-toxic red wines and beef best eaten with a spoon. Followed by chocolate-and-liqueur-creamcake threatening to sag in its own juices.
Nightsky exploding with fireworks from midnight until five. Can you catch the priest's soothing speech adressing lonely souls at midnight mass?
"I'm not there", Narcotango and Incubus floating from the stereo.
Boliches go crazy with youngsters tired of old folks.
The city which never sleeps, now sleep in the christmas intoxication. I can hear the birds sing.
A slow bus snails down the road. Christmas-break at the soccer-fields, my old man can rest...

Copyutopia

Art is not characterized by hegemony in respect to other fields. Beauty and truth are no longer exclusive to art. Rather than these qualities, certain conditions and mechanisms define a work of art at a given moment. But even if this is the state of things, enough remains. Art still remains a field where determined circumstances, qualities and desires become visible. And there remains the option to advert a vocabulary, a series of motives, gestures, concepts and reflections particular to this field.
This immanent change within the art field collaborates in order that its boundaries remain porous. More artistic elements are discussed outside the field of visual arts. It is as if arts autonomy were in bits and pieces, and they were all distributed. Elements which together conform art, we now find scattereded in every field imaginable. Diedrich Diedrichsen calls this process "New visual rutines". The look is widened. Arts failed purpose, one of the elements which constituted freedom of art, the freedom, since Kant, which justifies arts own rules, we no longer find them in visual arts. In a certain way, the artistic language is returning to its original definition, which embraces far more fields than visual arts.

Extract from "Cruzar las fronteras en lugar de importar y exportar" in La Utopia de la Copia by Mercedes Bunz.

Mercedes Bunz believes in the Internet, she lives in Berlin and is editor of Tagesspiegel Online. Since 1997 she has edited DE:BUG, one of Europes most important magazines for electronic music and world view. Co-founder and connected to Bauhaus Universität Weimar, she wrote her PhD thesis on the history of Internet, now published on Kadmos Verlag. Cultural critique and journalist, a student of Dietrich Diedrichsen, author of Persons in Loop (Personas en Loop), she recently published The Utopia of Copy (La Utopia de la Copia), a compilation of articles published in German media.

She questions art, genre, style, age, sexual identity along with our contemporary society and world. Her essays are portraits of everyday life and a map of cultural consumption in discource with thinkers like Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida. The essays can also be read as a survey of the mode in which contemporary esthetics are produced: From the Internet to the fanclubs of Kraftwerk, Missy Elliot and the new liberal pop.

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Sand and Salt in Mar del Plata

Resturant Quilmes, landmark on Playa Popular.







... say no more















Olé, a daily necessity











Playa Chica







Sunset fishing











Plain sunset

Media(r)evolution?

How overestimated are the old media, how innovative are the new ones?
It seems obvious: The old media are dead, live the new! This calls for a discussion of differences and similarities of new and old media and try to identify both benign and malign features, effects and consequences while at the same time visualize the media world in the near future. Who are better skilled to discuss this topic, if not journalists or artists who know both worlds well?

My view

My view from 14th floor..

The world according to Cristina

Nobody knows exactly what Cristina stands for. She will probably distance Argentina from Chavez and Venezuela, although at a point after the crisis, Venezuela was the only buyer of Argentinian state obligations, most likely pure subsidies.
And the neverending conflict with Uruguay has to come to an end.
She identifies herself with Hillary, yet she gave a harsh speek at the Mercosur summit yesterday regarding the US' role on the continent. Where did the US$ 800 000 Venezuelan Antonini Wilson carried to Argentina in August, come from. The story came public just before the election, aiming to weaken Cristina's candidacy by speculating that they were black campaign money. "I will not allow any dirty pressure," she responded.
Similarly, in Bolivia, the strong opposition and demand for independence and autonomy in the three rich, southern provinces, is giving Evo Morales real headaches. They do not appreciate his nationalization plan for the energy sector. They want things to remain the way they are and the money to keep floating into their pockets instead of into the National Bank. And neither do the US. It is far easier to control a poor and scattered country than to control a unified population with cash in hand. Silvo da Lula and Michelle Bachelet even went to La Paz this week to demonstrate backup for Evo.
As far as Cristina goes, she is now coming forward with her view of things. She plainly said that the shit that happends on this continent comes from abroad. And abroad means the US. And so far they get away with it.

Kill work

Work is the enemy of poetry..

The disappeared

24th of November 1976 the military attacked the Mariani-Teruggi home, killed Diana Teruggi de Mariani and kidnapped her 3 month old daughter Clara Anahi Mariani.

Her husband was killed the following year, 1st of August 1977.
The family is still looking for Clara, now 30 years old. With whom did she grow up..?
The newspaper Pagina 12 prints these ads on the anniversaries of the dissappearances.
Héctor Febres, accused torturist from the early 80s, died strangely from Xyclon b, the Nazis´preferred assassination agent, in his cell 10th december. Sadly, along with his departure he brought with him his knowledge of the kidnapped and adopted children.
18th of desember Cristino Nicolaides, the last head of army during the dictatorship, former coronels and torturists Roldan Guerrieri and Arias Duval, in addition to ex policemen Julio "Turco Julián" Simón and Miguel Echegolatz were sentenced to 21-25 years in jail for their crimes during the dark years. El "Turco Julián" is said to know a lot about the missing and adopted children form those days. A couple a months ago, the police priest Cristian von Wernich, was similarly sentenced for giving away intimate information from the prisoners.
I wish the were all younger, so that they would spend more of their lives behind bars.

All saints

The Argentinians adore their saints, canonized or not. Worshipped like angels or popular saints, Father of modern Argentinian tango, Carlos Gardell and everyone's Evita are the most obvious examples of great Argentinians who died young and tragically and after their death became imortal. Evita was honoured with 30 days of national mourning (!) after giving in to cancer. Gardell crashed in an airplane somwhere in Colombia in the thirties. Maradona will be next. Relating to saints is common in Catholisism and is far from madness, although different.

Roadside saints, mystrious shrines and sanctuaries was built in recognition of a popular pagan saint. Covered in ribbons and waving flags, packed with half-burnt candles, plastic bottles and make-do crosses, they are sites for bus and truck drivers who stop and say a little prayer, leave their offering and ask for blessings and a safe journey with a honking of horns.

Difunta Correa and Gauchito Gil are the big-names. During their lives, the suffering women and the brave gaucho both lived in the turbulent times of the mid 19th century, they both died tradically as unintended victims of the civil wars that hit Argentina at the time.
The faithful wife Difunta (deceased in Spanish) decided to follow her husband's steps to La Rioja when he, a federales political activist, was taken prisoner by an opposing militia, los unitarios. She never got to free him (or if that failed, bring his body home). Holding her young son in her arms, she died of thirst in the Caucete desert. Her story became legend stuff when a few days later, some shepards found her baby son alive and still breast-feeding from the deceased mother. Beleiving they had witnessed a miracle, they set up a cross on her burial ground on top of a small hill in the middle of a barren plain. Fifty years later, a herdsman crossing this hill on his way to Chile, was caught in a storm, loosing all his 500 cows. In desparation he prayed to the unknown grave to recover his cattle. It worked, he got them all back, and in gratitude he built a grotto with his own hands to the Difunta. It is just off the Ruta National 141, in the little town of Vallecito, 63 km east of San Juan. Hundreds of thousands arrive here during holy week, climbing up a set of stairs on their hands and knees.

Humbler, but growing, is the sanctuary of the Gaucho Gil in the north-east province of Corrientes. He found himself caught in the provincial civil wars between los celestes (light blue)and los colorados (red). Despite disinterest and lack of fighting skills he was recruited by the celeste Colonel Juan de la Cruz Zalazar, but tried to escape to the mountains and was decleared a deserter by the authorities. According to legend he became an Argentinian Robin Hood, stealing from the rich landowners of the region and distributing among the poor. He was also said to be able to heal the sick. Eventually he was found by the police, taken to court and hung hed-down from a tree. Just before he died, he said to his hangman: "When you get home tonight, you'll find that your son is about to die. You can ask me to save your child, because the blood of an innocent man helps perform miracles". Gil's executioner, regretting what he had don, erected a cross with a red ribbon hanging form the top. The site is located outside the city of Mercedes, 200 km south-east of Corrientes city. Every year, more than 100 000 people gather to commemorate his deth on 8 January. Devotees travel from all over the country to indulge in singing and dancing, mainly chamamé, the traditional folk rythm of Corrientes. Next to the shrine there is a campground, bars, cafés and stalls selling ultra-tacky souvenirs.

The pantheon of popular saints in Argentina does not end here, though. Also growing steadily in the devotional ranks are the various poor cousins of la Difunta and el Guchito: La Telesita, patron of the peasants form the norhtern province Santiago del Estero: the grisly cult of San la Muerte (Saint of Death) in the north-east, and more recently, the "canonized" figures of Gilda and Rodrigo, the popular Cumbia-singers who died young in car crashes during the 1990s. They have huge fan groups who meet at their graves, particularly at weekends, eat, drink, sing and decorate the graves with balloons and flowers, offerings of cigarettes and they bring crusifixes and pictures of Virgin Mary. The practice is stigmatized and a pronounced lower class fenomenon. Those who involve themselves are poor and from the working class. At the same time the local music genre Cumbia is in itself stimatized and considered lower class, while the middle class listen to European and American music. They have some way or the other become (sub)cultural saints after their death.

Most of the devotees of these pagan saints consider themselves orthodox Catholics and see no doctrinal contradiction in worshipping the Church´s "official saints" alongside their own unofficialy canonized folk heroes. Their worship builds on Catholisism and more prayers can do no harm, they say.

And the shrines just keep growing.

This text is partly based on Valeria Perassos BBC radio series Rituals on the Road, www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/heart_and_soul.shtml

Action anyone?

This sweetheart waited patiently for some action on Sarmiento in Almagro.

Her comparative advantage being legs, legs, legs and the best price in the neighborhood: "Soy la mas barata del Abasto".








Next door "Hotel para caballeros", hotel for men..

"Sin triki triki no hay bang bang" - The cumbia latex

*Campaign picture unauthorized reproduced from the magazine 7 Dias. Photographer unknown.






Sin triki triki no hay bang bang, the cumbia aids campaign towards the working class youth
http://www.trikitrikibangbang.com.ar/

Vamos con la cumbia triki triki
vamos con la cumbia
que la sabe poner
vamos con la cumbia triki triki
vamos con la cumbia
que tenes que aprender.
Yo tengo una piba, quee le gusta
el bang bang
pero algo le pasa, quando asomo
el bong bong
quando asomo el bong bong
se me planta de una,
y me frena el envión.
Metételo, tatuátelo
si hay triki triki
hay bang bang.
Si no pará, si no pirá,
si no hay triki
tomátela.
A todas las pibas, les encanta el
bang bang
les encanta el bang bang
y como a los pibes nos titila el
bong bong
la pelamos de una,
pero con capuchón.
Metételo, tatuátelo,
si hay triki triki
hay bang bang.
Si no pará, si no pirá, si no hay
triki triki, tomátela.

The campaign "Triki triki" is a stunt financed by The Global Fund Against Aids, TB and Malaria, a Geneva-based organization. This year the cumbia song Sin triki triki no hay bang bang, together with a powerful videoclip and billboards all over the more humbler parts of Buenos Aires, is part of an international action to support Argentinas great worry of the strong growth of HIV/AIDS among young people aged 14 to 24, particularly in the marginal neigbourhoods and villas. The campaign "Triki triki" wants to give a loud and clear and forcible message to the youth in a language and through aesthetics they understand and with which they identify, and at the same time embrace the rest of the population.

Desember 1st, the World's Aids-day was celebrated several places in the city. El Obelisco downtown was clad in the largest latex available (about 223 feet long/high..), I chose the concert with Babasonicos in Parque Patricio.

The memory of Villa Crespo

Since Buenos Aires' strong growth in the XVIII century, barrios identified and named by their parishes appeared. During the XIX centrury and the beginning of the XX century, economic growth and emerging metropolization in Buenos Aires, the barrios grew rapidly. Several followed the railway enabling the poor to work in the city while living economically outside or in the periphery.

The barrios generated communities with their own clubs, cafes, schools and soccer teams. Like in every big city, this created powerful barrio identity, but in Buenos Aires this was stronger. The barrios of Buenos Aires are really small villages grown together and is carefully defined within this and that street and this and that corner. Between them are rivalry and imperialism.

The barrios has their own football teams, Atalanta belonging to Villa Crespo, Boca to Boca, River Los millionarios in the affluent northern neighborhoods of Nuñez and so on. A friend told me that his father took him to a Racing-match when he was three. From then on, supporting another team than Racing, would be treason. You are born to a club, you don´t choose one. Serious stuff.

Lately the real estate market have changed the borders between the barrios. Trendy San Telmo eats less fancy Montserrat. Uptown Belgrano comsumes parts of Nuñez. Hot Palermo consumes Colegiales. Rich Devoto have eaten Villa Real. In this context Palermo is the most interesting and disturbing case as the first imperialist barrio. The success of Colegiales becoming Palermo Hollywood has generated Palermo Soho and now real estate managers want to expand Palermo to the west, branding the central barrio Villa Crespo as Palermo Queens. Fact is, if Buenos Aires has a Soho, it ought to be the southern and less fancy barrio Barracas.

With the tango, the coffee and the soccer in the historic billiard bar San Bernardo on the edge of what the real estate agents wants to baptize Queens, those who have lived in Villa Crespo their whole life and gone to the same cafe for coffee every day do not like this palermization.

"We do not want the barrio to turn commercial and risk losing its identity. We want it to keep its soccer team Atalanta and its traditional places, like San Bernardo. A movie theatre would be nice and so would a shopping mall. Weekends on the corner of Scalabrini Ortíz and Corrientes we used to meet and hang out before taking off for the hottest boliche at the time."

The neigbourhood wants to preserve their tangible and intangible heritage. The tangible being the architecture, the streets, the aesthetics of the neighbourhood. The intangible being the memory, the culture and the local costums. In Villa Crespo that means a crucible mix of people and race, being the neighbourhood of imigrants and the tango. This is not some local idea, but governmental norm, working to keep the neighbourhoods history and thinking of ways the young people will appreciate the local touch and culture and make it their own.


This one speaks for itself.






These three fellas shared Vasco Viejo and bread - Barrabravas de River, barrabravas being the porteño version of hooligans..

..he-he, a few years since they fought their counterparts in Boca, though.. now the brothers Alan and William Schlenker want to be in command, but Adrián Rousseau is still the big (mafia?) boss while the Schlenkers are waiting for trial in jail.




Juggling in the streets at red light.











Where they receive "all metal" in Villa Crespo.







Some parts of the city are more attractive on the real estate market that others, and so the porteños now see some barrios claming parts of another.

Another defining Villa Crespo corner.








Line 84 in Caballito.










....







Lunchtime Acevedo/Castillo. Churipan y media/media, sausage in bread with half and half red wine and soda.

Uruguayan blues

Lovely small items and antiques at the Plaza Matíz in Montevideo.






Ceramic tiles, tales of past grandeour.







Object by the Uruguayan painter José Gurvich.
More famous is Joaquín Torres García who painted the Latin American continent upside down.

The Uruguayan journalist and writer Eduardo Galeano wrote Las venas Abiertas de Latino America (The Open veins of Latin America), the best book on the continent I ever read.

South Atlantic waters.. Porteños regard Uruguay as a dull province of Argentina and the capital as a sad and melancholic city, but Montevideo has miles and miles of lovely beaches, which Buenos Aires hasn´t.




Beauty across Rio de la Plata.







La libertad en el arte implica aventura.
La aventura implica responsibilidad.
Libertad sin responsabilidad es peligro de desorientación.
Jose Gurvich





Timeout at the beach.







I like the large beers, but this one is not the worlds best..











The car park of Montevideo is old. American 50s style Fords and Cadillacs and Volkswagen gone out of production.

Mercado del Puerto with the English clock.

Meats in Mercado del Puerto.







Mate and thermos. Everywhere and at any time I spot mate-sipping argentinians and uruguayans.






A ladies pistol or an old Mausser, anyone? Plaza Matríz, Old Town.






Candombe music and drums, Brazilian influence.







Fountain of locks. Legend says that if you write your name and the name of your lover on a padlock and hang it on the fountain, you will allways be together and you will allways return together to the fountain.


Montevideo wasn´t that nice..






Fresh goose in the Feria de Tristan Narvaja.







Uruguay's flag. Buenos Aires in the horizon.







Cartonero, paper collector at work. Working horses still at use.







Plaza Matríz, Old Town. Sunset.








Herbs. Cure everything and make you slim too.. mix your own blend for the perfect mate.










Los ojos al servicio del alma:
ver, sentir y comprender,
con el alma a través de los sentidos.
José Gurvich

This sweet little fella got his hand on 100 of my Uruguayan pesos. In return I got a very musky perfume and a tape with tangotunes copied from the radio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZVKMjjBiHY

Life is a bitch and then you die...

After eight o´clock at night you leave your daily trash in a plastic bag in the street to be collected by the trash van cruising the streets at night. When I noticed the night shift workers (cartoneros) coming along with their trolleys to sort my paper from glass from plastic from ordinary food waste from the rest by hand, and before the vans get a chance to collect my garbage, I realized the porteños had a system for sorting waste. I thought with horror of all the crap I put in the waste bin, and I stopped throwing my newspapers in the same bag as the orange peel and dental floss and...
Coming to think of it, a goverment run system for sorting waste would probably leave hundreds of people without income as they sell their paper and plastic and metal and glass by the pound.
And coming to think of something else: Where are all the rats? With so much garbage in the streets, there must be millions of thick, well fed rats. But I havn´t seen one. Nor a cockroach...

Carlos Fuentes in Malba Art Senter

The great Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes visited Buenos Aires at Malba (Musuo de Arte Latinoamericana de Buenos Aires) Wednesday 14th November. This is as close as I got, in the foyer, the auditorium was packed.
Afterwards they treated specially invited guests with wines and Mexican snacks. Living in hope, I hung around the restaurant to see if they would notice me slipping by, but the lady with the namelist kept giving me spiky looks.
Appearantly I was not among the worthy ones. Cool guy, though, 79 years old with of strong presens and great humor.
A true trancient experience, and I was there. When the dialouge with Silvia Hopenhayn was over, it was gone.
He spoke of his fascination for the city where the collective coincide with the individual and he spoke of the problem of arts, music and litterature which only reproduce themselves (like fashion) and don´t really develop.
And like other great writers he admitted that writing is 10 % talent and inspiration. The remaining 90 % is work. Either you write or you don´t.

A donde voy
Por donde voy
A donde vuelvo
Carlos Fuentes

1ra Expo de Arte Villero

Numerous artists participate in this first exhibition which shows the reality where the most marginalized sectors of the capitals population struggle every day. Villa 20 and 21, Barrio Piedrabuenba, Villa Zavaleta and Soldata, Villa 31 and 31b and Barracas is represented. Paintings, wall installations, photography, sculptures, Cumbia music and film.


The exhibition has a clear message to the world: "No al Paco", "No a la Base", or "No to crack", "No to freebase". The poor mans drug. Cocaine manufacturings leftovers. Crap. Shit. Overflowing the poor neighbourhoods of every Latin American city. Paco, crack or base, freebase being the venom which destroys families and homes in these humble parts of the city. A great part of the dwellers in the villas has to front this every day, simply because here is where paco is traded. And abused. This picture was painted explicitly to be photographed and published by the public to broadcast the message.
La Virgen next to a wall of clips from the paper: football, murder, poverty, drug abuse...documents of harsh living..






Creativity in the poorest villas or barrios in Buenos Aires is expressed through a will to transform struggle and ugliness to beauty.





Peron, Evita, football heroes and the Cumbia stars Gilda and Rodrigo. All of them have some way or the other become (sub)cultural saints after their death.
Gilda and Rodrigo, both of whom died young in tragic car accidents, are now worshipped like angels or popular saints. Their fan clubs meet at their graves, eat, drink and sing. At the same time they are Catholics, and their worship builds on Catholisism.
This is a stigmatized practice and a pronounced lower class fenomenon. Those who involve themselves are poor and from the working class. At the same time the local music genre Cumbia is in itself stimatized and considered lower class, while the middle class listen to European and American music. Here you have the class perspective on the one hand and faith contra rationalism on the other. The word "fan" is also stigmatized, and ethymologically dericed from "fanatic", says Hanna Skartveit, social anthropologist who studied the phenomeneon. The worship is about identity and pride among the working class. And it is about death and how you relate to it. Poor people handle death and burial on their own, while the rich make bureaus take care of this, considered cold and impersonal by the poor.
The fan clubs meet at the graves, particularly at weekends, and they decorate the graves with balloons and flowers, offerings of cigarettes and they bring crusifixes and pictures of Virgin Mary. The idea is that the dead artists are some kind of guardian angels close to God who will bring him their prayers. As a fan you carry an image of your guardian angel everywhere and at any time, talk to him or her and ask for advice. If the weather is bad, this may be a sign that the saint is angry.
This is far from madness, although different. Relating to saints is common in Catholisism. And they talk not only to Gilda or Rodrigo, but also to canonized saints such as Virgin Mary. Many are very concious that this is distinct from canonized Catholisism, but they feel they have a mission; to protect the name of the artist and to portect the family and its honour.
In Villa 21 a woman had made this Virgen sculpture and donated it to the exhibition.










Trains, trains and more trains. Estación de Contitución, or perhaps Retiro. Busy and chaotic.
The desire to live a decent life is as strong among the marginalized part of the population as among the rest of us. Art represents a way to break through and create beauty from horror.