Buenos Aires Growing on Me
Saturday, March 31st, 2007Usually things just work out for the best. The rain today which fell in bucketloads for twelve hours straight was a good thing. I went to the MALBA museum which has Latin American art. The place was packed with Argentinians and some tourists. They came for the opening of the David Lachapelle exhibition. Who is Mr Lachapelle? I didn’t think I knew, but when I saw his art it all became clear. He is an American photographer who has been doing wild stuff for a few years. You can look him up. He also does music videos I guess as the director and art designer. They had huge prints of his photographs (examples – Pamela Anderson basically nude in a spray on tanning booth and the nozzles are spraying a brown goop on her body and Naomi Campbell totally nude laid out on a table with breakfast fixings) and were playing a half dozen of his videos (Christina Aguilera, Macy Gray, Moby, Elton John, etc.) playing in a small theatre. I laughed heartily at each photo. Most people were taking them very seriously. I flashed back to the Botero museum in Bogota where I was laughing and everyone else was so serious. If you can’t laugh at fun art, you probably should not be there. I know Botero and Lachapelle would want it that way and, no, I don’t know either of them. I ate lunch in the museum’s cafe and enjoyed a delicious, serious meal with a glass of nice and also serious red wine. Maybe the people taking Lachapelle seriously should have had that glass of wine before touring.
vagabondrick