Landscapes, tour and films

Landscapes, tour and films: Mondongo is here for a while
The duo of artists continue to receive clay works at the Arthaus cultural centre in the city centre; the season's programme has many other highlights in different areas

There will be a new building in Puerto Madero with a specially equipped area to house and exhibit in a panoramic way the fifteen paintings that make up the brilliant set Argentina (Landscapes) by the duo Mondongo, the most expensive work of Argentine art, which the collector Andrés Buhar bought at the end of the year for US$1,270,000. But that will not be until 2027. Before that, in 2026, the series will go on tour around the country and, even closer in time, in the next few months, when they finish enclosing a second terrace at the Arthaus cultural centre, the landscapes (45 linear metres) will be able to be seen on the same floor of the building in the city centre where another large clay sculpture "lives": The Baptistery of Colours.

While the exhibition Mondongo sin título (las calaveras, el dinero) continues on different levels of the building, a few days ago the 2025 programming of this space dedicated to visual, performing, scenic and musical arts was announced. Within the framework of this launch, the premiere of a film –or rather three– by Mariano Llinás on the baptismal study of colors conceived by Manuel Mendanha and Juliana Laffitte was confirmed. Each part has its title: El equilibrista, Retratos de Mondongo and Kunst der Farbe.
It was still the pandemic year of 2021 when Arthaus commissioned the filmmaker with “total freedom” to make the film about the Mondongo group, whose members were friends for twenty years. “The result, four years later, was a) The end of the aforementioned friendship and b) the so-called “Triptych of Mondongo”, consisting of independent films that, however, have a common orbit: the work of Mondongo, his particular relationship with the director and the relationship of the art world with danger, matter and money,” they reported.
The fight behind the new creation will surely give much to discuss. For now, it is known for certain that after it is screened in March at the MoMA in New York, the triptych will be shown in consecutive functions, on different days (all very Llinás), during March, April and May, on the terrace of Bartolomé Mitre 434. There will be deck chairs.
“Inhabiting art”, a leitmotif

But man does not live on mondongo alone... or woman. The menu of the Visual Arts section directed by María Teresa Costantin has other strong dishes for this season. Starting with the exhibition by the multi-award-winning photojournalist Rodrigo Abd (World Press Photo, Pulitzer, Gabo) who will cut the ribbon on April 22 in Room 1 with Scenes, to answer questions in images such as: Why do we take photos? Does photography have to be compelling? Do all photos have to help us reflect? These are questions that Abd himself asks himself after 25 years covering wars, conflicts and life stories in different parts of the world. Although they warn: “This is not a retrospective but a transversal tour of his archive with a specific cut: the photos that we do not fully understand what they are; those that, far from confirming something, perhaps make us doubt what we are seeing.”
At the same time, that is, also from April to August, in room 2, the artist from La Plata, Agustín Sirai, will exhibit Un acto de transformar y otras Escenas de viaje, a special production of paintings that construct a fragmentary narrative through landscapes, interior scenes, portraits and inventories, where the everyday is intertwined with the imaginary, and the boundaries between the natural and the constructed are blurred.

In the second semester, both floors will be dedicated to the installation Escenarios posible para un nuevo mundo, by the artist Sebastián Díaz Morales, which in a series of video projections and LED screens will address widespread global tension and the imminent possibility of a catastrophe. Between the premonition and the possible drastic changes that could affect our social systems and ecosystems, a reflection on the current world climate ensues, they anticipate.

The year will be closed when the installation Sentir la corriente, by Eugenia Calvo, is mounted, which will remain in Room 2 until well into March 2026.
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