CCS Buenos Aires

Cultural Centre of Spain in Buenos Aires

Most people in Argentina, when they talk about Spain, are talking about their own country, or that of their parents, or of their grandparents. The average Argentine is familiar with the names of leading Spanish writers, actors, screenwriters and artistic creators, and it is not uncommon to overhear people talking about the latest cultural events in Spain. Immediately after its independence Argentina sought out political and cultural role models far removed from those of Spain, but by the late nineteenth century a network of cultural relations and dialogue had begun to appear among intellectuals of both countries, a trend that strengthened in the years following the Spanish civil war. And relations between Spain and Argentina inevitably extended beyond the economy and politics, to become a solid sharing of values, a historic relationship built upon a common culture and a common language. The paths of the two countries have intertwined, forging close ties among artists and intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic. There has always been a cultural interaction between Spain and Argentina, featuring not only prominent names in contemporary creation, but the aftershocks of many generations of thinkers and artists. This cultural interaction has been reflected in the many books produced in Argentina for the Spanish market and in the cultural magazines on both continents which publish both Spanish and Argentinian authors. In the main Argentinian cities, but most particularly in Buenos Aires, Spanish immigrants have founded publishing houses and have held university chairs. A host of bookshops have been opened. García Lorca used to walk along Avenida de Mayo, in Buenos Aires, and Jorge Luis Borges strolled through the Puerta del Sol in Madrid. Spanish voices would sing alongside bandoneon players. Today, as always, the Spanish and Argentinian cultures are inseparable. 1985 was a year of great changes, both in Spain and in Argentina, where the Government of Raúl Alfonsín (1983-1989) initiated a cooperation policy aimed at consolidating institutions and at reinforcing the cultural and artistic nexus between Spain and Argentina. In 1988, the Institute for Ibero-American Cooperation (ICI), the future Cultural Centre of Spain in Buenos Aires (CCSBA), was created on the foundations of the Spanish Book Shop in Calle Florida in Buenos Aires. The building was completely renovated according to the designs of the architect and plastic artist Clorindo Testa, whose previous work included the National Library of Argentina. Testa’s appointment to the project was no coincidence, as he was prominent among the movement that arose from the Instituto Di Tella in the 1960s, including some of the most influential artistic creators in Buenos Aires. Initially known as the ICI, the Cultural Centre was a hotbed of activity, at the forefront of cultural creation in Argentina. During the period of its consolidation, between 1997 and 2007, leading intellectuals and artists from both Spain and Argentina came to the Calle Florida building, a unique scenario for the change of an era, as from a monochrome world to one of vibrant colour. Reflecting its generous budget allocation, the Centre contained a multi-purpose exhibition hall that housed displays up to 95 metres long, with the potential for use as a lecture hall, a theatre or video display centre, and with the capacity to accommodate 150 people seated and even more standing. It also had a spectacular reference library, also designed by Testa, with more than 12,000 books and magazines covering all fields, but specialised in contemporary literature, philosophy, essays, art and video. The different Spanish writers, intellectuals and managers who led the Centre over the years each left

1. Natural Science, exhibition of works by Juan Gatti. CCSBA, 2012

2. First presentation in Argentina of the group Fuel Fandango, among the events celebrating the 30 th anniversary of CCSBA

1 their own mark, creating a dynamic and innovative cultural agenda. New cultural services were offered to researchers and users in general, with the conversion of the library and video library into a multimedia library, by incorporating two new resources: the new music library and the ultra-fast internet terminal. The space designated for the music library had two CD players, a cassette player, two sets of headphones and a computer with internet access. This terminal allowed the user to visit the ICI web page dedicated to the music library, where audio archives were periodically updated, and which also contained links to the web sites of artists, festivals and centres for the promotion of contemporary music in Argentina, Spain and elsewhere. The first live event organised had an on-line connection with Sónar, the most important electronic music and multimedia art festival in Europe. Seasons were devoted to contemporary Spanish cinema, in collaboration with the Cinemateca (San Martín General Theatre) and the Filmoteca (Cine Maxi) of Buenos Aires. The longstanding Buenos Aires Video Festival introduced the ICI Video Award, which was subsequently expanded to include the categories of Experimental Digital Art and Multimedia. A website was created to publish the entire artistic production of the ICI, to facilitate consultation and to provide links with other sources of cultural creation, in coordination with Spanish libraries, with the central agencies of Spanish Cooperation and, especially, with its Hispanic Library. Every Monday at the ICI was dedicated to the arts of tango and poetry. Barbaria, a magazine published by the Cultural Centre, announced and promoted its cultural events, and provided a venue for discussion and the introduction of new ideas. The AECID Forum organised roundtables and lectures as a framework for reflection on a wide range of subjects and current issues. The Cultural Centre of Spain has presented an enormous range of activities in its 30 years of cultural life, making an indelible impact on Argentinian society. Spanish culture, in all its variety, has interacted with an artistic community in Argentina that is lively, curious, generous and aware of the potential for cultural creation offered by this symbiosis.

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Today, as before, Spanish culture is promoted by the CCSBA and is omnipresent in Buenos Aires, with shows in Calle Corrientes, exhibitions in leading museums and concerts in a range of auditoriums. This is accompanied by a constantly-rising demand for Spanish speakers and cultural experts to teach courses and seminars in Argentinian universities and cultural institutions. In addition to the above, the activities of the Cultural Centre have been complemented with projects and programmes that, with AECID sponsorship, enrich the agendas of the National Museum of Fine Arts, the Enrique Larreta Spanish Museum and the Museum of Decorative Arts, among many other institutions. The performing arts are showcased at the Cervantes National Theatre, the emblematic Avenida Theatre and at the San Martín and Maipo theatres. Book promotions and reading cycles have been held, in collaboration with the Mariano Moreno National Library of Argentina. Spanish cinema is present in major festivals such as Mar del Plata and the Buenos Aires International

Independent Film Festival (BAFICI). Music cycles captivate the audiences at the Usina del Arte arts venue, and Spanish artists are prominent in design and video art biennials. The Buenos Aires Cultural Centre has provided the setting for outstanding creations of music, art, literature and theatre, from the realms of Spanish, Argentine and other Latin American cultures, among its many contributions to cultural cooperation. The Cultural Centre has also generated projects, stimulated ideas and channelled communications among painters, artists, writers, poets, musicians and video artists. The cultural life that used to flourish in the basement of the Calle Florida building remains as healthy as ever, in Calle Paraná, and its impact is apparent to all. The presence of Spanish architects, curators, historians and artists, teaching in Argentinian institutions, and of Spanish writers filling assembly halls at the Buenos Aires Book Fair, is always received with great enthusiasm. From the outset, the Cultural Centre of Spain in Buenos Aires has worked tirelessly in support

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3. Meeting forming part of a CCSBA MediaLab Programme

4. Espanoramas, an annual highlight, presenting some of the best Spanish films

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5. Photography workshop for children, given by the architect and artist Jorge Yeregui

of the arts, providing an outstanding example for other cultural centres, both in Latin America and elsewhere. The fact that a cultural institution of these characteristics has fulfilled 30 years of creativity is, in itself, great news. The CCSBA, by vocation and by institutional mandate, has achieved this feat thanks to the support and cooperation of a large part of the cultural society of Buenos Aires. Publishers, art galleries, cultural institutions, universities, journals, artists, writers, actors, musicians, other intellectuals and, above all, the public, whose suggestions and encouragement have led this cultural centre to become what it is today. In 2018, the CCSBA celebrated three decades of participation in the cultural world of a city and a country where it is cherished and day after day is winning the hearts of a new public. In 2016, with the creation of a dedicated area for children and young people, new fields of action were opened up, particularly in science, with the invaluable collaboration of Spanish scientists resident in Argentina. The Spanish film festival Espanoramas has completed its fifth edition and is now well established as the closing event to the summer season in Buenos Aires. The Centre is a hub for cultural and scientific encounter and exchange, where creative minds meet and work together in the advancement of culture. The Cultural Centre provides an outstanding environment in which to foster and present new trends, especially in the performing and visual arts that characterise our globalised world. Spanish culture is visible throughout the local media, and interpersonal cultural relations are deeply rooted among large communities of artists and intellectuals, in both countries. The cultural cooperation promoted and implemented by the CCSBA has embraced change and presented innovative proposals, blazing the trail for other cultural manifestations. Looking back to trace the path we have taken allows us to assess what we have done, and to confront the next steps with greater conviction. Here at the Buenos Aires Cultural Centre, we’re happy to look back and acknowledge the hard work done by so many friends and the support given by so many institutions, foundations and companies that have made the Centre an essential showcase for Argentinian and Spanish cultures. In the words of the tango Mi Buenos Aires Querido, “Memories parade before us, leaving a sweet trail of emotion”.

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The past few years have been fruitful, but we will not fall prey to complacency. We aim both for continuity and for expansion into new areas. We also wish to incorporate new audiences and to reinforce ties with our already loyal public. On this, our thirtieth anniversary, all of us at the Cultural Centre of Spain in Buenos Aires thank the public for their generous support, which has encouraged and reinvigorated us; we also thank the writers, artists, teachers, intellectuals, scientists and friends who accompany us in our work, as well as the media who make us more widely known and the AECID personnel for their backing and enthusiasm, which inspire our reason for being.

A red carpet for culture

Ezequiel Martínez

Director of Culture of the National Library of Argentina

What does Rafael Alberti have in common with Marta Minujín; Ernesto Sabato with Pedro Almodóvar; Manuel Vázquez Montalbán with The Black Organization, or Adolfo Bioy Casares with Charly García? The answer is that all of them, in one way or another, left their mark at the birth of the Institute for Ibero-American Cooperation (ICI). In those early years of what is now known as the Cultural Centre of Spain in Buenos Aires (CCSBA), its activities took place in a large, modern basement beneath Calle Florida in Buenos Aires, purposedesigned by the architect Clorindo Testa. Within a very short period the initials ICI became a synonym for the most intense of all cultural movements in the Argentine capital.. The initials may have changed since then, but the essence and spirit remain intact. Not since the hustle and bustle generated by the Di Tella Institute in the mid-1960s has there been a phenomenon with the impact that the ICI produced in Buenos Aires. Opening up its legendary pocket programme of events, a folded handout in which dozens of monthly activities were crammed in together, was like unrolling a red carpet as a walkway for the protagonists of its raison d’être, a Hispanic world of creators, bringing together and contributing ideas, exchanges, debates and cultural proposals. Since day one, its formal inauguration 30 years ago, the ICI has shaken up the traditional arts, inviting creators and the public to embrace the avant-garde, in all disciplines of culture, including music, literature, dance, theatre, cinema, design, fashion and the plastic arts. Because this is the Centre’s fundamental aim: to liberate emerging creators, enabling them to undertake innovative, creative projects, in the same venue where Fernando Savater may have spoken the day before, or where the following day a jury of industry professionals would debate proposals for the ICI Buenos Aires Video Award; or where they could all intermingle, in the best sense of an exchange between teachers and learners, between the classic and modern. Personally, I have fond memories of the ICI, which was the first institution to invite me to take part in a public debate. Under the banner “De tal palo, tal astilla” (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree), the ICI brought together the sons and daughters of journalists, to sit around a table and talk about our inherited, shared vocation. And there I was, just twenty-something, feeling like an intruder in that place that had welcomed so many maestros. This space, since its beginnings and to the present day, has been generally acknowledged as mythical and unmissable.

The need to dream

Samuel Bossini

Director of the Poetry Festival at the Buenos Aires Book Fair

For me, as for many other artists in Argentina, the Cultural Centre of Spain in Buenos Aires immediately brings to mind the initials ICI (Institute for IberoAmerican Cooperation) and a basement on Calle Florida, where under the leadership of the poet José Tono Martínez, members of the creative world started coming by, taking the opportunity to experiment and to see things from a fresh viewpoint. Thanks to the ICI, poetry had its own, splendid, home from home. I had the pleasure of inviting poets who have since become legendary, such as Gonzalo Rojas, Marosa di Giorgio, Eugenio Montejo, Antonio Cisneros, Antonio Gamoneda and Carlos Edmundo de Ory, to read their work and to talk to their public. Poets, thus, crowded into the basement, shoulder to shoulder with poetry lovers. But not only poetry; there was also tango, philosophy, the visual arts, book presentations, magazines… And for whatever conceivable event, that is where it all unfolded, before a loyal, eager audience. An audience that, once the meeting had concluded, went to El Navegante, an authentic Galician restaurant, to dine and to pass the evening discussing poetry and the issues of the day. Then came the move to Calle Paraná. But many of us mentally lock ourselves back into that basement, feeling no need to venture out. We cling to those times, those dreams distilled in their space, persisting and drifting through mist and through light. The poet José Tono Martínez, a former director of the ICI, was forced out by the intransigence of Catholic extremists, following an exhibition of work by the great artist León Ferrari, and he was succeeded by other directors, each leaving their own mark on the institution. Today, it is known as the Cultural Centre of Spain in Buenos Aires and continues to promote events before appreciative audiences and to provide ever-needed support to the world of culture. A culture that donates its voices, asking nothing in return. A culture that is constantly unveiling, rebuilding and regaining its voice, raising its voice from the basement. The place where true culture grows and shows us the way. Basements are rarely mistaken.

URUGUAY Cultural Centre of Spain in Montevideo

Address

Rincón, 629. C.P. 11000 Montevideo

Opened

2003

Web

http://www.cce.org.uy/