"This is not America": Alan Faena's new bet in the Obelisk

Tagliatelle with tuco, chorizo ​​steak, stew ravioli. Here are some of the "house promotions" at Bar El Obelisco, Cerrito at 400, which enters
Alan Faena with his
look usual: wearing white, with a hat with wide brim.

In this context, the Argentinian businessman draws more attention than in Puerto Madero or Miami Beach, where he promoted the transformation of two entire neighborhoods with luxury real estate projects marked by the seal of
Norman Foster,
Rem Koolhaas or
Philippe Starck.

"What a beautiful place," says Faena about this porteñísimo bar, where he will meet a group of collectors this afternoon. They will then watch the alternating advertisements on a screen located in front of the obelisk: a model that shows the benefits of permanent hair removal, personal loans, tourist destinations offered by the airlines.

In this
loop In the infinite, a black and white sentence, "This Is Not America", and a map of the American continent will be filtered several times an hour. As in 1987 in Times Square in New York and almost three decades later at Piccadilly Circus in London, the iconic work of the Chilean artist
Alfredo Jaar exhibits for the first time in South America to recall that the word "America" ​​designates all the territory that extends from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska, and not just to the United States, as its inhabitants usually use it.

With this presentation of "A logo for America", starting today, from 19:00 to midnight, the Buenos Aires Faena Festival will be inaugurated.
Promoted for the first time last December in Miami, during the
Art Basel, will continue until next Sunday as part of the
Week of art

"This is our contribution to the programming of Art Week, we wanted to bring to Buenos Aires the festival, which was so successful in Miami, with works not imported but recreated in the local context." The idea is to offer an alternative to the market with a more complete concept, in public space and accessible to all ", explains Faena, promoter of institutions such as
Faena Art Center and the
Faena Forum.

"The idea is that people are not going to look for art, but to find it on their way," concludes Zoe Lukov, curator of this festival, which is not meant to be a competition for art.
arteBA. Quite the contrary: in partnership with the foundation that animates the fair and the government of Buenos Aires, Thursday, at 19h, show of the Argentinean artist Cecilia Bengolea on the central track of La Rural – with free and free access – and public sculptures of Luna Paiva a few meters away, in the
Park Art Week.

As in Miami, the Faena Festival is committed to transformation through movement: it will go from Palermo to the Hotel Faena, Puerto Madero, to participate in the performance that Fernando Rubio will perform for one viewer at a time. In the hotel pool and at the Faena Art Center, Isabel Lewis' work invites us to reexamine our relationship with the community and nature. Full programming is available in
faenafestival.com

"This Is Not America", the phrase of Jaar's work that inspired the name of the festival, will appear again and again in front of the obelisk. The legendary monument of Buenos Aires has already played in an acrobatic aerial show during
inauguration of the Youth Olympic Games last year and another shocking artistic intervention in 2015.
Leandro Erlich unleashed collective panic at
remove the tip of the monument to move it on the esplanade of Malba.

"Democracy of the symbol" called this first work
site-specific in Argentina to Erlich, who this year
will present in the same museum his first anthological exhibition in the country. True to this concept, the Faena Festival "is a rejection of our tendencies to define and limit," says Loukov, "a proposal for a new America, a boundless America, an America that could become the dream it could have been . "