The Art of Living in Buenos Aires.

We're still in mid-summer here in Buenos Aires, but the cultural season has begun. Last year we had more plays and musicals, more wine-tastings and food shows, more new stuff in museums and galleries, than at any time in recent memory. This year promises to be even better, especially in the museums.

Start with the blockbuster show of Henri Cartier-Bresson photographs in the Centro Borges. Cartier-Bresson is everyman's favorite photographer, shooting people and places, tragedy and joy during the last 70 years of the 20th century. The Buenos Aires show includes most, if not all, of the Cartier-Bresson exhibit I saw last year at the Biblioteque National Mitterand in Paris. I went to that show two or three times, and I'll probably do the same here. Every visit is a treat as these treasures give up another detail, another insight. You can catch it here until April 10.

Next door to Cartier-Bresson, in the same Centro Borges, is an exhibit of photos by Argentine Horacio Coppola. Coppola's photos document Buenos Aires street life in the 1930s; see what a peaceful, low-rise city Buenos Aires once was. (We now have some twelve million people in the greater metropolitan area.) You can find out more about both shows by visiting the website: http://www.ccborges.org.ar/home.html (in Spanish).

The other big event here in Buenos Aires is the reopening of the Fine Arts museum (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes) in Recoleta. After six months and millions of pesos, the refurbished museum features Argentine painters past and present. European masters get the ground floor, with works by Rodin, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec, and more. But upstairs the museum presents its heart and soul: the new Argentine wing. Start with 19th century paintings of revolution, battles, and hunger. Continue to the Luisa Maria Bemberg wing, then to early 20th-century works. End up in the modern art room, with the best of Argentine contemporary art. Many of these painters are still active. The museum opens at noon on weekdays and is closed Monday.

For something more offbeat there's the "fileteo" show at the Museum of the City, in San Telmo. "Fileteadores" decorate carts and buses, signs and walls, and almost anything else that paint will stick to. Fileteo looks like paint decoration gone wild, with doodles, swaths of color, swans, and dragons. Besides names, places, and other practical information, fileteadores often paint their favorite slogans. Fileteador Martiniano Arce, for example, says that "Reality is an Effect Produced by Lack of Alcohol." But the only way to know what I'm talking about is to look at the pictures: http://www.carlosreyna.com.ar/fileteado/tango.html.

The musem's website is http://www.buenosaires.gov.ar/areas/cultura/museos/museociudad.php (in Spanish). But note: the museum is located at Defensa 293 in San Telmo, around the corner and down the block from the address given on the website.

Paul Terhorst
For International Living