Vanesa Krongold is a girl with style. You can see from the second she walks into the Recoleta teashop that she stands out from other girls sitting at their tables. This is one of the most exciting up-and coming designers who also styles for the most fashion-forward magazines in the country.

After presenting her collection at Ciudad Emergente last year, the fashion world has been opening up to this young woman from Buenos Aires. Her designs are colourful, floaty and dreamlike, and despite being incredibly contemporary, retain a certain timeless style.

Tell us a little bit about how you envisage your designs and what kind of woman do you design for?

I design to be girly, playful and risky, but still elegant all at the same time. Sometimes I think of it as though I’m cooking with ingredients – you need a pinch of elegance, but not too much, a little bit of rebel, but not so much. It’s like mixing everything together and creating a balance.

How did you get to where you are now?

I started off studying fashion design and styling at Palermo University. I’ve always worked as a stylist and a photographer for the university, so my designs have always been more of a visual job, rather than sewing.

Then, a year after I graduated I travelled to London to take a short course in print at Central St. Martins (one of the top fashion universities in the world). So, when I came back to Argentina, Ciudad Emergente called and asked me to present my collection as an emerging designer. Inspired by the course, in my first collection I covered everything in print!

I design and make all the prints but I don’t personally sew the designs. Still, all the clothes are homemade as I have two women working with me.

Now I’m selling clothes in London – a store on the Kingsland Road called No One, and also online on Far Fetch, and Asos websites. In Buenos Aires my clothes are sold in Kabinett and Fire Walk With Me in Palermo, as well as a shop in Rosario called Gris Topo.

What inspires your work?

I’m inspired by childhood and memories from my childhood. I’m also inspired by walking around the city and taking pictures of things I like. I like taking pictures of old people, old stores, things that are forbidden, and kitsch elements. I like the things others find horrible - something that’s so old we don’t use it anymore. I like finding these things and finding the beauty in them because they’re so horrible.

This inspiration then goes into my clothes. I’ve printed lots of kitsch screen savers from the 90s - ones that I’ve just found on Google and I love the colour so I’ll print it onto my designs. I’m also inspired by Chinese and Japanese culture.

What’s the fashion community like here in Buenos Aires?

We’re a small community and so, as a designer, you know everyone. We are about five or six new designers right now. In Buenos Aires, the “new designers” are around 40 years old, so they’re not that new anymore - they were new designers around 10 years ago. So we’re trying to push though a new generation of designers.

Fashion here is not an industry yet, it’s just something that is starting to take off. We’re still looking for our identity, because we don’t have it yet - everything is just copying from what is going on outside Argentina.

Is it easy for someone who is still so young to break into an industry that is already dominated by established designers?

If you’re doing something different, then it’s a lot easier. But, if you aren’t, then it’s very difficult. The industry likes people that take risks.

For me I think it was easy because I started working when I was really young. When I was studying I used to work as a stylist intern in a magazine called Catalogue, so I learnt art direction there. It’s very important to understand that side of fashion in order to effectively design your range, and also to know how to construct a good photograph.

Do you find your styling and designing feed into each other?

Yes, definitely, they’re twins. My designs need to be with my styling, and that’s the way I create. Like, when you paint a portrait, you see colours and textures coming together and by the way they combine, you begin to see more colours and more textures.

What do you think of Buenos Aires in comparison to other fashion capitals?

I think the main point is that here in Buenos Aires, people need to feel safe. There are also underground cultures, where people dress differently, but it’s not as common here. If you wear something weird or racy, people are going to look at you, and maybe even shout things at you. For example, if you have colour in your hair, or if you’re wearing something a little bit different, people might shout, “Hey! It’s not Halloween” – this happened to me once!

Do you think people have to change their attitude?

No, I think the designers need to change. I think if we change and we offer different clothes - if we show people that they can dress differently - then they will dress like that. So it starts from the designers. It’s our responsibility.

I think it’s important to understand that in different cultures people appreciate beauty in different ways – men appreciate beauty in different ways, and that influences the way women dress. So here in Argentina, women feel they are appreciated by their sensuality, and they feel like they need to dress like a woman and be very feminine. But when you travel to Europe, for example, when I was in Berlin, women dressed more androgynously, and that is what men appreciated as beautiful. It’s a different perception of beauty.

Do you feel you have to design for this attitude?

I don’t design for it, but at the same time you know this is what will be popular. You know how men see clothes on a woman. And as a designer, you also know that women want to feel beautiful, and know that someone is thinking you’re beautiful.

Brian Storming (Courtesy of Brian Storming Myspace)

Musical talent and creativity often run in the family. J.S. Bach’s father and uncles were accomplished musicians. Prince took his name from the jazz trio in which his father played. Yngwie Malmsteen grew up surrounded by family members with musical gifts.

It’s no surprise, then, that Duncan Toth, singer and composer of orchestral act Brian Storming, would be the son of Los Gatos’ bassist Alfredo Toth.

Further validating the genetic argument, the music of each displays a special affinity for the sounds of psychedelia. Decades after Los Gatos’ glory days, Duncan and Brian Storming have taken things to a more whimsical, pop-infused vista than the harder-edged group Los Gatos did in the 60s and 70s.

First conceived by Toth as an audiovisual project, Brian Storming combines atmospheric sounds with film projections to create an audience experience that is fully immersed in sensory-perceptual fantasy. Influenced by the ‘Sergeant Pepper’ era of bands like the Beatles, the imaginations of the likes of Tim Burton and Lewis Carrol, and early orchestral movements from Disney and Hollywood, Brian Storming catapults the listener into a blurry, rippling, and enchanting state of mind.

In 2003, the band appeared live at Creamfields festival, returning again the following year, and have since toured tirelessly throughout Argentina over the last decade. The recording of their first album, ‘The Fantastic Voyages of Brian Storming’, began in 2002 and was completed as a 10-track LP released in October 2005.

Quickly gaining recognition as a unique ensemble of sound, sight, and imagination, Brian Storming was selected to open three shows for Coldplay in February 2007, at the Gran Rex Theatre. In November of the same year, they were chosen to open for Björk in a string of Buenos Aires shows.

The band has been noted for its do-it-yourself ethic and organically independent position in Argentina’s shifting musical scenes. With lyrics sung in sleepy, whisper-soft English, Brian Storming’s sound awakens an impressive range of sensations: wondrous, experimental, and vulnerable motifs of innocence flirt with the mildly terrifying and pensive numbers recalled from Disney films such as ‘Fantasia’.

Occasionally criticised for choosing to sing in English, Toth responded in a 2010 interview with Página 12: “Singing in English is an ingredient of the atmosphere that we create, with film, music, or literary references such as Lewis Carrol, Jules Verne, and Edgar Allen Poe…It is a choice: every band and every artist makes a decision when creating something that has to consider what came before it.”

Despite pressure to enter into the castellano tradition of Argentine rock, Toth has acknowledged Brian Storming’s debt to bands such as Almendra while continuing to pursue their own peculiar, magical vision.

Following an EP in 2008 (‘Brian Storming Avec L’enchanting Device’), the band began work on its most ornately textured and visually evocative release to date: 2010’s ‘Brian Storming and the Illustrated Guide to Fantasie’.

Over 12 tracks, ‘The Illustrated Guide to Fantasie’ sparkles and shimmers with a modernised big band aura, particularly suited for a live setting. With incredible skill and sonic detail, Brian Storming manages to sound both studied in its inspirations and shrewd in their expression of an avant-garde aesthetic. They are as steeped in 20th century orchestral beauty as they are in the punchy accoutrements of contemporary pop music—definitely worth checking out.

Genre: Orchestral Fantasy

Dates Active: 2002-Present

Famous For: Incorporating film and music into a visionary performing act

Most Famous Song: Stupid Little Drummer Boy

In their own words: “The idea is simple: to continue making records for a very long time.”

Best Lyric: “We’ll be the wheels of never-ending dream/so let the unexpected ride begin” (‘1920’)

Best to listen to: Never on drugs…

It only takes walking along the streets of cities like Buenos Aires to notice the distinct features of Argentine architecture. Like the country itself, Argentina’s architectural heritage is the result of a wealth of international influences, with buildings across the city varying from imposing, Haussman-style apartment blocks to radically modern, conceptual designs.

Argentine Architects of the World on exhibit at Centro Cultural Recoleta (Photo: Beatrice Murch)

Though the county’s older architecture owes itself to Spanish colonisation and the influx of European immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century, the international element of the country’s architecture has still not been lost. And with a continual input from overseas, architecture today has retained a unique sense of diversity.

With this same element of internationality at its centre, the ‘Argentine Architects in the World’ exhibition begins with an explanation of recent architecture. Aiming to show how Argentine architecture is not solely international in its influences, the exhibition explains how, due to the recurring difficult economic situations in the 20th century, architects in Argentina have been forced to find work elsewhere. When they returned, not only did they come back with a wealth of international influences, they had also injected Argentina’s architecture into different cities around the world.

Luis J. Grossman and Daniel O. Casoy are the curators of the exhibition which is now in its ninth year and is presently showing at the Centro Cultural Recoleta for the first time. Part of a larger organisation of the same name, the architects shown at ‘Argentine Architects in the World’ have each been chosen for their unique input into architecture and what results is arguably a collection of the most important names in the contemporary architectural world.

The exhibition is split into two parts, with one room dedicated to the collections of previous years. Photos and diagrams accompany profiles of architects, and although admittedly the commentaries can sometimes be overly proud in their tone, this part of the exhibition is, nonetheless, a fascinating run-through some of Argentina’s most important architectural names.

Walking around the room is like going on a tour with an expert guide. Familiar faces of buildings such as the Catholic University of Argentina and the MALBA gallery mean that, even if architecture isn’t your speciality, this exhibition never fails to be interesting and offers a unique insight into your surroundings in Buenos Aires. Looking at Argentine architecture in cities such as Miami, Munich and Madrid, ‘Argentine Architects in the World’ also offers a point of comparison between architecture in Argentina and the rest of the world.

Floralis Generica by Eduardo Catalano (Photo: Trey Ratcliff)

This year’s version of the exhibition is, however, a cut above the efforts of past years. For the first time in the exhibition’s history, original drawings of the buildings and constructions we pass on a daily basis are on display in their very earliest stages. The inclusion of the drawings - perhaps the result of the exhibition being held in an art space for the first time – means the exhibition cannot simply be described as “architectural.” The drawings are practically art objects in their own right, exposing a sense of creativity unique to each architect. Among them are Eduardo Catalano’s highly detailed drawings of his masterpiece La Floralis Generica - the huge, mechanical, silver flower in Recoleta - offering a previously unseen element of one of the most recognisable architectural successes in Buenos Aires. Standing in contrast to more colourful pieces, or those with more mathematical calculations, this year’s collection betrays a unique sense of each architect’s personality.

Architecture may not be something you know a lot about. But even if it isn’t your thing, this exhibition is a great way to get to know the strengths of the Argentine architecture that surrounds us every day. This year’s more creative side, and the detailed insights into each architect mean that this year, architecture in Argentina just became a lot more accessible.

Rebellion and experimentalism - the signature of the vanguard - are the historical and cultural legacy bequeathed by Argentina’s literary reviews. The country’s small magazines assumed their present shape in the twenties, that auspicious decade of economic and social optimism. As cultural manifestos were vigorously being penned across the globe, Buenos Aires adopted its own reputation as the intellectual hub of South America - the so-called ‘Paris of the South’, a coinage that still lingers today.

But beneath the surface of bohemian glamour lurked glaring social contradictions that informed much of the groups’ cultural and political struggles. Portals of poetic, philosophical and artistic trends, the reviews fostered a strong artistic community, lending writers a sense of collective purpose.

This week’s Top 5 lists some of the literary journals that have acquired a mythical status in the cultural imagination. Many of the polarised views and vitriolic debates of the 1920s were stirred by two competing literary factions: the Florida group - dubbed the Martinfierristas - and their counterpart, the Boedo group, contributors to Claridad. Cosmopolitan, urban and elitist on the one hand and international and socialist on the other, they constantly pushed artistic and political boundaries. Of a much less militant strand, the long-running magazines Sur and Contorno were instrumental in providing a forum for the writers of Argentina’s literary golden age.

Victoria Ocampo with her review 'Sur' (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia)

Sur

Founded in 1931 and published regularly until 1970, Sur was the most vocal literary and cultural outlet in Argentine letters in the twentieth century. Sponsoring a cross-fertilisation of the arts - poetry, philosophy, history and the visual arts - it secured its iconic status for a generation of writers for whom the small magazine was a natural counterpart of the literary salon.

Its longevity was due, in large part, to the sound financial footing of its founder and lifelong editor, Victoria Ocampo, as well as the intimate friendship she cultivated with one of the country’s most famous writers Jorge Luis Borges. Sur provided the occasion for a number of literary encounters, including the introduction of Adolfo Bioy Casares and Ocampo’s younger sister, Silvina Ocampo.

Despite its name, Sur’s contributors ranged far beyond the local scene, including Virginia Woolf, Jean Paul Sartre and William Faulkner, to name just a few. Cultivating ties with foreign luminaries did lead to its derogative branding as extranjerizante - a term that indicated its allegiance to cosmopolitan, elitist, European models.

Whilst never brandishing a manifesto, and in spite of its apolitical ‘art for art’s sake’ agenda, the magazine articulated its own brand of liberalism - a resistance to mass culture and nationalist populism. Many cultural positions adopted throughout the twentieth century were often positioned by their adherence to, or distance from, Sur’s creative manual to the arts scene.

Claridad cover (courtesy of Claridad)

Claridad

A screaming face bursts out of montaged buildings; a man brandishes a florescent torch; a Grecian goddess dances precariously on a sphere, beneath which reads ‘the pedestal of social peace’. Founded by Antonio Zamora, Claridad hit the press in 1926 with the stated mission to mediate the cultural debate, until that time monopolised by another review named Martín Fierro. Inspired by the French magazine Clarté, it gave voice to a militant group of intellectuals who advocated social integration fostered through the arts.

Claridad’s editions serve as documents tracing the developments of leftist thought in the first half of the twentieth century. Its ideals addressed both the influx of immigrant workers and the internationalism of the left. The first editions provided a platform for Russian literature, French social realism, and the dissemination of new national voices - especially those affiliated with the Boedo group, as well as the work of Argentine artists Xul Solar and Emilio Pettoruti.

Designs by the so-called ‘People’s Arists’ served as a vehicle for the dissemination of social protest and the struggle of neglected sectors of society. Its provocative, ideologically-freighted covers owe much to the futurist and constructivist aesthetic taking off across Europe.While reviews of films by directors Léon Klimovsky and Alfonso Longuet introduced readers to the experimental gaze of Soviet and German expressionist cinema, the Boedo group believed that aesthetic development was inseparable from political consciousness.

Martín Fierro from 1924

Martín Fierro

Founded by Evar Méndez in 1924, the innovative literary magazine acquired a mythic status in its mere three years of publication. A product of the wave of the avant-garde literary reviews that sprang up in vanguard circles throughout the 1920s, Martín Fierro set out to disperse the new ideas that were taking Europe by storm, and assimilate them into the national agenda. Recalling the eponymous epic poem by José Hernández, the Martínfierristas sought to explore the ‘topography’ of criollismo - collapsing distinctions between national tradition and a modern, democratic aesthetic. The gaucho was subsequently recast as a cosmopolitan, flaneur figure, and a frequenter of the shabbier districts of the city.

Martín Fierro’s signature is a wry, sardonic humour, notable in its pseudo-obituaries. Apollinaire, Picasso, Corbusier, and Stravinsky were just some of the eminent international figures that found their way on to Martín Fierro’s pages - as well as Argentine writers including Leopoldo Marechal and Raúl González Tuñón.

The provocative ‘Manifesto of Martín Fierro’, penned by the avant-garde poet Oliverio Girondo, clearly owes much to the Futurists’ vitriolic agenda, debunking moribund traditions and catapulting Argentina into the twentieth century. Méndez discontinued the publication in 1927, unhappy that a faction of the group were using its pages to garner support for the presidential campaign of populist leader, Hipolito Yrigoyen.

Contorno cover from 1953

Contorno

Hailed as a landmark publication upon its inception in the mid-1950s, the contornistas occupied a niche ground in political and cultural journalism. Founded by brothers David and Isamael Viñas, it produced only ten editions over the space of six years but, in that period, successfully formulated a new critical idiom. In keeping with a core group of Argentine intellectuals, one of Contorno’s most salient features was its militant anti-Peronism - viewing the 1955 overthrow as a moment of liberation. Their provocative manifesto, ‘Terrorism and complicity’ set out to dismantle the pillars of an antiquated arts tradition and bourgeois complacency. Contorno’s revisionary approach did, however, come under severe criticism from those who believed the magazine served merely as a vehicle to dismantle the cornerstones of Argentine tradition.

Despite its eschewal of the past, Contorno sought to advance a cultural agenda that would account for the stark realities of Argentine life, reproblematising relations between literature and society. The periodical published the work of an important coterie of writers, including influential contributors such as Juan José Sebreli, Oscar Masotta and Alejandro Rozitchner.

Highlight entries include Roberto Arlt and the Argentine novel and Ezequiel Martínez Estrada and the essay. Acutely aware of its place in the avant-garde tradition, it contextualised its own project with an essay, ‘Martinfierristas: their time and ours’.

Proa reviews

Proa

Proa, the oldest Latin American publication still in print, was founded by Argentine writers Borges, Macedonio Fernández and Eduardo González Lanuza in 1922. Coeval with Martín Fierro, it shared many of its vanguard populist principles - including free circulation in libraries, bookstores and amongst friends.

Originally emulating the triptych design of the Spanish magazine ULTRA, it provided a platform for eminent European and Latin American writers of the era. Two years later, Proa was relaunched from Borges’ Recoleta abode with $50 capital, donated by Georges Braque, Alfredo Brandan Caraffa and Pablo Rojas Paz. The new version, with illustrations from Borges’ sister Norah, as well as Pedro Figari and Adolfo Gramojo, showcased the works of Pablo Neruda, Raúl González Tuñón, Roberto Arlt and Eduardo Mallea. But, constantly stymied by a lack of capital, Proa stopped publishing again the following year.

Silvina Ocampo and Bioy Casares relaunched the magazine in 1988 - a project that Borges ad unsuccessfully attempted since 1982. Proa’s content includes short stories, poetry, essays, literary, film and visual arts criticism. The magazine was again forced out of print following the 2001 economic downturn but was subsequently taken on until 2003 by Chilean publishers. In its third phase, Proa still has a circulation of over 17,000 with a wide distribution throughout Latin America.

Dread Mar I in concert at Parque Roca. (Photo: Estrella Herrera)

Arguably one of the most prolific Argentine reggae stars, Dread Mar I is also one of the most recognisable. Physically, his strong Argentine face is surrounded by a cascade of dreads; vocally, his smooth soulful singing wouldn’t sound out of place on a Motown record. His synthesis of pop and reggae has brought him to the forefront of modern Argentine music, but his life did not start so seamlessly.

Before his moniker of Dread Mar I, Mariano Javier Castro was a young boy from a poor household in Lanús in the Buenos Aires Province - also the birthplace of Diego Maradona.

Not unlike Maradona, the young boy used his skill to work his way up to nationwide fame. But there is where the comparisons end. Instead of inducing fanatical favour in his followers, the singers reggae beats and smooth soulful voice inspire calm and laid-back Caribbean ambience. And instead of spiralling downward into a drug addiction, Mariano has used his alias to preach peace, unity and respect of man in line with his Rastafarian beliefs.

Born in 1978, he moved with his family to Maipu, Buenos Aires, where his father opened his own bakery. Mariano helped out in his father’s business until he caught his first music break singing for Argentine reggae band, Mensajeros.

Referring to his upbringing and how it made him successful, he has said in interviews that hard work and a proactive attitude was key: “No one moves for you, you have to move for yourself. No one will come to your house and say ‘this is for you,’ at least for me this didn’t happen.” Yet, once things did start happening for the young man from Lanús, they really happened.

2005 was when his career took an up turn. Besides being the lead singer of Mensajeros, he also became a stable member of one of Argentina’s most famous bands, Los Cafres. He then left both to pursue a solo career and produced his first album, ‘Jah Guía’ before the end of the year.

In 2006, Dread Mar I’s status on the Argentine reggae scene grew when he played alongside Peter Tosh and the Wailers at the Bob Marley Day Festival in Buenos Aires’ Luna Park, playing to an 8,000 crowd. This same year he released his second album ‘Hermanos’, with a new band behind him named Los Guerreros del Rey.

After that, Dread Mar I turned out albums like they were hot-cross buns at Easter. In 2008 he released his third album ‘Amor-es’ and played more than 60 shows in less than 8 months, touring around Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

But it wasn’t until his 2010 release, and fourth album ‘Viví en Do’ that he really shot into the limelight. The album contains what is arguably his best-known song - ‘Tu Sin Mi’ - an ode to a lost love that has notched up an impressive 30 million YouTube views. It’s the song where the singer croons “Y ahora estas tu sin mí” (easily mistaken for “you’re a star” by many a expat/tourist in the BA clubs).

Due to his soulful, R&B style vocals and romantic lyrics that trademark each song, Dread Mar I has often been labelled lover’s rock reggae. He personally disputes this claim, insisting his lyrics deal with social and spiritual themes, leaning towards roots reggae, the genre-home to Bob Marley and Peter Tosh and the Wailers.

Even the name for his first album points to his Rastafarian beliefs, as ‘Jai Guía’ means Jah (a Hebrew term used by Rastafarians to mean god, or lord) Guide. On this album, his spiritual side is ever-present, particularly in the song ‘Inspiración’, where he sings about the inspiration of embracing nature.

Talking about the musical change and popular response he received with ‘Viví en Do’ in a recent interview with Clarín, Dread Mar I suggests his new success is the fusion genres. “Being independent, we could cross barriers that other bands could not cross,” he said.

Although the album was considered more pop than reggae by some critics, the reggae star fought back pointing out: “I make music for all, not just the ghetto.”

“Reggae is evolving all the time: always something new, something more modern,” he said, defending the evolution of his music into the popular mainstream. He attributes his success to being open to trying something different, and not sticking to one genre: “I make songs that entertain you, that make you think differently, get you out of your routine.”

Dread Mar I is currently touring around Latin America with his latest album, ‘Transparente’, which was released at the start of June. The new album contains 22 new songs, all written by the Argentine singer/songwriter.

Genre: Roots Reggae

Dates active: 2005-present

In their own words: “Reggae is for everyone, it tries to unite, not separate.”

Most Famous Song: Tu Sin Mi

Best lyric: “Live today, live well, live forever, with your body and mind” - Inspiración

Most famous for: His 2010 turn into a (reggae) pop star

Best to listen to: When the sun is shinning and the weather is sweet, yeah.

When Miguel Angel Reigosa bought 50% of the Café de los Incas in 1993, he told his partner Jorge that his dream was to have the “largest display of whisky in Argentina”.

He made it.

Miguel Angel and all the whisky on display at his Villa Urquiza Whisky bar 'Café de los Incas'. (Photo: Brian Funk)

In 2010, her majesty Queen Elizabeth II herself invited him to spend a few days in London for her birthday: by then, he had the largest private collection of whiskies in the world, and his bar, Café de los Incas, had become a mecca for whisky lovers throughout the southern hemisphere.

Nothing except whisky is displayed behind the bar. “It is the only alcohol I can drink,” Miguel admits candidly.

With its dark woods, low lights, scruffy carpet and a suited-up waiter pouring scotch ‘by the eye’, Café de los Incas is indeed the closest thing to a Caledonian pub you could ever set foot in here in Buenos Aires. The architecture itself is quintessentially British, with flashbacks to an old Victorian tavern.

Of the 260 varieties stocked in the bar, some hang on the walls resting in custom made illuminated lockers. These precious locked cases open only for the 3,200 members of the Argentine Malt Whisky Association (WMA) who can request imported rarities whilst enjoying a mouth-watering 40% discount.

Some members drink it straight, some on the rocks, some with William Wallace - a thermal mineral water specifically created and mineralized by the WMA to accompany whisky and now exported all over the world.

Tastings, appreciation courses and communal dinners are also on offer, where the most expensive variety of J&B could cost up to $1,000 per sip - but you can get away with paying $45 per glass for an excellent blend of Irish whisky.

The finest Argentine blend, the Criadores Breeders Choice, obviously features on the a la carte menu in this whisky academy, which also houses a replica of the first bottle of Jack Daniels; a Cuty Sark produced to celebrate the jubilee of Queen Victoria; a famous Grouse limited edition; a bottle of Old St. Andrews shaped like a golf ball; a 30-year old Ballantine or a 12-year old Macallan (but, yeah, you can just ask for a simple, unpretentious coffee)

A former importer of clocks and perfumes, Angel learned how to drink whisky in the United States during trips abroad. “My father bought me my first bottle. ‘Son,’ he told me, ‘the day you will start drinking, you’ve got to learn how to drink good stuff.’ Now the only thing I can drink is whisky,” he says.

Precious Glenfarclas whisky (Photo: Brian Funk)

Angel founded the WMA in 1999 when, thanks to the convertibility regime, he could import bottles of whisky people had never seen before.

“I will always be thankful to this era,” he once wrote. “Otherwise it would have been impossible to have the quantity of bottles I now have in my private collection.”

Mundo Whisky, the television show he hosts on canal Metro every Sunday at midnight, is just a part of this ‘cultural’ revolution.

“We’re granted funds by the municipality to open a whisky museum because they consider us a cultural entity,” he confessed, rattling off a list of bar and pubs franchised to the WMA in Argentina.

Last December, the association organized the 8th National Festival of Whisky, and the perspectives for the future appear encouraging. “It is not only a Buenos Aires thing. We are ‘teaching whisky’ in Córdoba, El Calafate, Venado Tuerto (Santa Fe), Rosario, La Plata and Salta.”

“I wish Argentina had better whisky culture,” he gets off his chest. “Our problem is that we can’t make long-term plans, every ten years we have a crisis. It’s a shame as we have the finest ingredients in this country.”

In 2001, when the country collapsed, few Argentines were introduced to the whisky cult. Now, if the economy crushes again, Argentines can at least find consolation at Café de los Incas. After all, as the tradition goes, what was whisky created for, if not for being both medicine and antidote to sadness?

Coming from a nation which has an overinflated sense of importance based largely on its inventions - television, telephone, penicillin (guess the country) – I thought it would be in the public interest to investigate what Argentina has given the world. It’s much more than just mate, Maradona and meat.

Some people made suggestions that bordered on the ridiculous – football (we all know that’s Scottish) – and others were too controversial and embroiled in mystery to confirm – dulce de leche, although a staple here cannot be safely traced back to Argentine hands – but nonetheless we have managed to compile a list comprising of five local inventions or innovations that have indeed changed the world.

Birome's advertising in Argentine magazine Leoplán, 1945

The Ballpoint Pen – Ladislao José Biró

It might be a stretch to call the ballpoint pen an Argentine invention but its creator - Hungarian-born journalist painter and inventor Biró László József (or Ladislao José Biró as he later came to be known) - did spend half his life living in Argentina and is an adopted son. Born in 1899 in Budapest, he relocated across the Atlantic in 1943 just in time to make it big with his invention.

Biró first patented the ballpoint in Hungary after he’d become increasingly frustrated with the inefficiency of fountain pens whose ink dried slowly and needed to be refilled frequently. Inspired by the printing presses in newspapers, he set about designing a pen that could administer ink from a plastic tube with the aid of a small ball. The first attempts failed due to the viscosity of normal ink but with the help of his chemist brother, he found a consistency that worked.

On arrival in his new homeland, he commercialised his invention, setting up the company Biro Meyne Biro and the rest is non-leaking, fast-drying, smooth-applying history. The invention was immediately popular with the British Royal Air Force before going on to global domination.

Needless to say, the successful entrepreneur was accepted into the bosom of Argentine society and, although the ballpoint isn’t strictly a local invention, it is considered one.

‘Inventors Day’ is celebrated every year in Argentina on Biró’s birthday: the 29th of September. His daughter, Mariana, remembers that whenever he was asked what his best invention was, he would always say, “the next one”.

A still from‘El Apóstol’

The Animated Film – Quirino Cristiani

When people think of animation, an affable mouse generally springs to mind. But the medium has its origins elsewhere. The first ever animated film was definitely aimed more at adults. ‘El Apóstol’ was a satire about Argentine president Hipólito Yrigoyen, which came out in 1917, years before Disney started bringing cartoon characters to life. “Disney is great but I was the first,” Quirino Cristiani later recalled.

Born in Italy at the end of the 19^th century, Cristiani moved to Buenos Aires with his family in 1900. He fed his passion for drawing during a stint at the Academy of Fine Arts before going on to work as a satirical cartoonist in Buenos Aires’ newspapers.

A year after the election of the radical president Yrigoyen, and the success of a short film he had made that pioneered the use of cardboard cut-outs in animation, Crisitiani set about creating the world’s first feature-length animated film, with the widely-ridiculed president as his subject. It premiered on 9th November 1917. Not content with that achievement, he also made the first animated film with sound in 1931.

It is said that Walt Disney, by then a global superstar, offered Cristiani a job in the 1940s, but that Cristiani refused in order to stay in Argentina and work on his own studio.

Tragically, Cristiani’s catalogue of work was lost in a succession of fires and no copies of the world’s first animated films exist.

Dr. René Favaloro performs a heart bypass surgery, a procedure he invented whilst studying in the United States (Photo/Fundacion Favaloro)

The Heart Bypass - René Favaloro

Argentina is a country often associated with passions of the heart but one Argentine man captured more than most. René Favaloro, a doctor from La Plata, has saved millions of lives across the globe with his revolutionary surgical procedure: the heart bypass.

A man with humble beginnings, Favaloro rose through the ranks of the Argentine medical system and was invited to work at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic in the United States, where he mastered the art of cardiac surgery. In 1967, supported by a team of world-class doctors, he performed the world’s first bypass surgery. In layman’s terms, the principle of the procedure is to bypass a diseased section of a coronary artery, allowing blood to flow freely around the heart. The procedure continues to saves lives today.

Favaloro’s life after the revolutionary breakthrough was unfortunately overshadowed by disappointment, then tragedy. He returned to his homeland in 1971 with plans to build a medical centre as innovative as the one he had experienced in Cleveland. In 1975 he founded the Fundación Favoloro but it never reached the heights he dreamed of. In 2000, sick of Argentine society and suffering from spiralling debts, he committed suicide by shooting himself through the heart.

Dogo Argentino (Photo: Christian Pinatel)

The Argentine Dogo - Antonio and Agustin Nores Martínez

The Argentine Dogo, a dog famed for its strength and power, is the result of tireless breeding by Antonio Martínez and, more lately, his brother Augustin.

Antonio set about breeding the Dogo with the vision of creating a dog that was strong and aggressive enough for big game hunting, but docile enough to live peacefully alongside humans. Taking the Cordoba fighting dog as his base, Antonio, a respected surgeon and professor, used selective cross-breeding to give the dog the traits he wanted.

To improve the dog’s smell, he crossed it with Pointers and genes from the Great Dane gave it height while the Bull Terrier was used to create its white coat. Genes from the Dogue de Bordeaux and the English Bulldog were used to improve the strength of its jaw and crossing it with the Boxer apparently added intelligence and good temperament. The last pieces in the exhaustive breeding jigsaw were the Irish Wolfhound and the Pyrenean Mountain Dog which were used for their calm demeanour and strength.

The Argentine dogo was a miraculous feat of breeding but the result was, and still is, controversial. Because of their extreme strength – they are said to be able to kill an animal as large as a wild boar on their own – they are banned in countries across the globe including the UK, Portugal and parts of the United States.

Artificial heart on display in the Smithsonian (courtesy of Smithsonian)

The Artificial Heart - Domingo Santo Liotta

Not content with just the one revolutionary heart-related procedure, Argentines can also be proud of creating the first artificial heart to ever have been used in a human.

Born to Italian parents in Entre Ríos in 1924, Domingo Santo Liotta has studied and taught medicine internationally but is best known for his work with artificial hearts.

Liotta studied the science behind artificial hearts at university in Lyon, before applying the techniques during animal experiments in Argentina in the 60s. He went on to develop partial artificial hearts that he put into practice in surgery, but it wasn’t until the end of the decade that he made the first Total Artificial Heart (TAH).

The main objective was to keep a patient alive using a mechanical heart while he waited for a replacement heart transplant. The first operation to make use of the device took place on 4th April 1969 when a dying man was kept alive with a TAH until they could replace it with another human heart. The original TAH model is still on display at Washington’s Smithsonian museum.

Leon Ferrari on exhibit at MALBA (Photo courtesy of MALBA)

Godless societies are on the rise but arguments over religion still rage in Léon Ferrari’s provocative collages. The most glaring idiosyncrasies of Christianity are nowhere more evident than around that heavily contested zone - the female body.

At the entrance to his latest exhibition in Buenos Aires’ Malba, an image of Michelangelo’s Christ, plucked from the Sistine chapel, is superimposed upon a Martin Schreiber nude of the pop icon, Madonna. Displaced from its original context, the marmoreally-contoured, imposing religious figure appears to rise, like a black-and-white surrealist still, from the pop icon’s reclining figure.

The blazing drama of late Italian religious paintings is insistently subjected to Ferrari’s potent re-imaginings. His provocative collages combine a distortionary, surrealist angle with a photomontage technique. Insistently foregrounding unlikely encounters between revered religious iconography, biblical quotations and oriental erotica, Ferrari’s ‘re-readings’ debunk any canonical interpretation, cutting religious and political hegemonies down to parodic size.

The exhibition opens with the mid-90s Braille series: this is Ferrari in a more sober, reticent vein. Scintillating dots overlay biblical images of scenes from the Last Judgment and the Expulsion from Eden, highlighting the seeds of cultural indoctrination. Unlike his bold, provocative collages that offer surface critiques of sexual morality, the transparent film of the braille series works by subtly drawing the viewers’ attention to dominant cultural narratives. Biblical translations are placed as side appendages, pointing to the sources of a 2,000 year history of deceit and repression.

Leon Ferrari interpretation of the "Expulsion from Eden" on display at MALBA (Photo courtesy of MALBA)

From the laconically elegant typeface of his 1960s ‘Cuadros escritos’, Ferrari has insistently sought to foreground the materiality of language, exploring its associative potential. With the braille series, the viewer is silently engaged with the tactile surface bossing: the act of ‘touching’ the historic reproduction implicitly subverts the visual hegemony entrenched in Western iconography. In theory, bringing the viewer into physical contact with the work emancipates them from their role of passive spectatorship. In practice, visitors accustomed to viewing an objet d’art with revered critical distance, approach the work cautiously.

But Ferrari’s work is, nonetheless, compelling purely on the grounds of its wry directness, its wit and pizazz. In the vignettes of the Genesis landscape, ‘I created evil’, a blissfully insouciant Adam and Eve are lectured by a tufted-bearded priest and chased by a stick-wielding angel, casting the nude definitely out of Eden. Each religious figure is relentlessly perforated with Ferrari’s censoring crystals, placing such irrefutable dogmas in skeptical visual parentheses. In ‘The bread of life’, a coy-seeming Christ, his fingertips smeared with blood, heads a table on which plates display his beheaded disciples. Alongside the biblical text reads: “I am the bread of life: He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth in me shall never thirst.”

The iridescent braille film over Andrea Mategna’s ‘The Lamentation over the Dead Christ’ points to the failure of Christianity to revere both body and soul, offering its own illusion of the spirit rising out of the recumbent body.

The series moves eastward with a series of erotic Japanese prints of couples in elaborate pornographic poses. The playful irreverence of the works depends on the combination of idea, image and biblical caption, of the like of ‘Flee fornication’ and ‘Who eateth my flesh’. While Man Ray’s black-and-white print ‘Eve’ is placed in dialogue with Jorge Luis Borges’ love poem.

In ‘Thou shalt not covert thy neighbour’s wife’, Gustave Courbet’s starkly realist, libertine ‘The Origin of the World’ is divested of its Musée d’Orsay gilded baroque frame and subjected to Ferrari’s braille censor.

Curator Florence Battiti presents a coherent, intelligent retrospective: the contemptuous works are allowed to seamlessly flow together, evoking the ubiquitous narrative of religious doctrine. The ever-so slight variations on the same theme do run the risk of sliding into gratuitous repetition, but Ferrari’s work is at its most probing when it subjects Christianity’s disdain for the flesh to absurdly comic proportions - quite literally in Utagawa Toyokuni’s gruesomely enlarged ‘love thyself’ prints.

A gaudy, technicolour pope presides over a Goya-like multi-layered etchings of hell by Leon Ferrari in MALBA

In the second half of the exhibition, images from the mass media are starkly juxtaposed with religious iconography. A gaudy, technicolour pope presides over a Goya-like multi-layered etchings of hell; a cartoonish God looms over the Vatican; while angels bemusedly contemplate a phallic Roman sculpture.

The provocative temporal and cultural transplantation of these vignettes spin out of Ferrari’s central conviction that the “Bible is an anthology of cruelty”. The images point endlessly to the repressive, violent strains encoded in religious practice; and to the political manipulation of cultural signs. Nothing is self-contained in Ferrari’s world; his most successful pieces work on a theatrical principle of dramatic irony.

The apocalyptic scenes of Hiroshima are viewed through the curtains of Piero della Francesca’s ‘La Madonna Del Parto’; the angels of birth are now depicted as minions heralding the launch of weapons of mass destruction. As in Brueghel’s painting in which the major event is eclipsed by the diurnal round, a couple in Jan van Eyck’s ‘Virgin of Chancellor Rolin’ are absorbed in their ostentatious domestic setting, while in the distance a prospect of war and destruction rages on.

The explicit, intransigent works are testament to Ferrari’s relentlessly inventive, irreverent style. Curated in dialogue with Malba’s concurrent exhibition, Bye Bye American Pie, it offers a provocative, searing critique of the mechanics of political and religious imperialism.

Sergio Chotsourian of Los Natas on guitar (Photo: Fernando Stefanelli)

After sharing a stage with bands such as Queens of the Stone Age, overseas tours to Europe and the United States, and an impressive back catalogue of ten albums in just over ten years, it is no surprise that fans lamented the end of Argentine band Los Natas in February of this year.

Formed in Buenos Aires in 1994, the Los Natas trio consists of Walter Broide on drums and vocals, Sergio Chotsourian on guitar and vocals, and bassist Gonzalo “Crudo” Villagra.

Influenced by bands such as The Doors, the Who, Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd, their musical base undoubtedly lies in sounds from the 60s prog-rock years and the psychedelic music of the 70s. Their many different influences, some as far as Asian sounds, came together in their debut album ‘Delmar’, released in 1996.

And while it is often difficult to classify the band, perhaps the most common term used is “stoner rock”. Seen as a sub-genre of heavy metal, stoner rock features a much more bass-heavy sound.

The genre emerged during the late 90s, principally as a reaction against the mainstream. A number of bands worldwide, all with similar influences and sounds to Los Natas, formed an undercurrent in the music world. Bands would release CDs and vinyl, aiming to go against contemporary global trends and rules. Their ideals caught the attention of the music industry, with a greater emphasis being laid on the overall sound rather than focusing solely on musical composition.

Taking the concept directly to their live shows, the band’s concerts were known to be continually changing and constantly evolving. Los Natas found different and novel ways to play their own music. In an attempt to change the perceptions and expectations, the band focused strongly on the sound, challenging not only the senses of their audience, but also their own. The band has also been known to perform to psychedelic visuals, enhancing the idea of playing with senses. Over time, the visuals have become as celebrated as the band members themselves.

Over 12 years of existence, the band’s sound continued to grow and develop, along with new and different influences. Los Natas’ sound crosses boundaries into several other musical genres, including those as far in contrast as Argentine folk music. As such, their sound began to move away from the stoner rock genre, blurring the boundaries between different areas. In an attempt to define themselves, the band coined the term “free rock”, hinting at a more experimental sound.

After their first album, things really sped up for the band. Almost every year, they released a new album and toured in Latin America, Europe and the US, often headlining festivals closer to home.

Each album release suggested change and a certain new direction. In 2006 for example, with the release of ‘El Hombre Montaña’, the band’s sound became heavier and more energetic than their previous releases, while in 2007 the band released a double album with demos, covers, re-recording and guests, showing their progression between 1994 and 2007.

With different recordings, Los Natas travelled to various countries to record their music. Toba-Trance Volume 1 (a 60-minute album in 3 songs) and 2 were recorded in Finland in 2003-4, for instance, where the band found the reaction to psychedelic rock more open due to similar bands emerging from Germany. ‘El Nuevo Orden de la Libertad’, released in 2009, was recorded in the US, and the band also spent time in Italy and Germany.

Yet after 2009, a series of public disputes and controversies sparked rumours of a split. By 2011, Broide had come forward with a statement that pointed to the end of the group. Finally, Los Natas announced in February of this year that they would no longer be making music together.

In a press statement the band said that they would be, after 18 years, retiring from the world of music, for the “most important reasons: family life, and the mental and physical health of our members, Gonzalo, Walter and Sergio.”

After ten albums, a wealth of legendary live shows, and a series of parties hosted by the group in Buenos Aires, the band may be over but their legacy is not. Los Natas’ experimentation with their own sound has left a mark in Argentine national music; their influences stretching far and wide. The next time you listen to your favourite Argentine national rock band, don’t be surprised if Los Natas turns out to be one of their most important influences.

Genre: Stoner rock

Dates active: 1994-2012

In their own words: “It’s not only what you play, but also how you play it as well as your own interpretation of the sound.”

Most famous song: ‘Bolsero’

Best lyrics: “The darkness close to me today, / Your eyes are the sun, the lunar moon. / In your breathing I live in paradise, / I live in paradise.”

Famous for: Putting Argentine stoner-rock on the music world’s radar

Best to listen to: When you feel like any genre will go

El Sonido de los Durmientes (Photo: Natasha Ali)

A group of casually dressed musicians take to the stage with their classical instruments at a low-key cultural centre in Belgrano. They start playing; patiently building to a crescendo. The guitar player sits centre stage with his head down, his eyes shut and his foot cocked on a stand in front of him. Engrossed in the music, he waits as the composition comes together around him, until finally he plucks his first chords.

El Sonido de los Durmientes are an avant-garde musical collective challenging the stereotypes of the classical musician - and they’re not just an orchestra that play the odd Beatles song to prove that they’re not square. Ambitious, and with original compositions, they’ve set out to redefine their own genre.

Gabriel Lombardo, a young musician and composer, is the focal point of the ensemble, holding centre stage with his guitar. He is also the intellectual force behind the band, writing and composing the entirety of their set. He is flanked by a group of between seven and ten musicians – playing wind and string instruments and percussion – handpicked to play and mould his songs. But what is so different about the sound they are trying to create?

“We want to work with popular genres using tools from classical music,” he explains referring to the styles of cumbia, folk and chacarera that are popular in Argentina and across continent. “We are trying to create a language that integrates the rhythmic aspect of Argentine and Latin American popular music.” They are also setting out to capture their own experiences of Buenos Aires as it is today – a sprawling metropolis, defined by mass immigration, with the lingering effects of a catastrophic economic crisis – in sound.

They are classically trained musicians escaping from the stifling academia of classical music - one where you endlessly write music but rarely perform it. What the group wants is to play challenging and exciting music that moves people and provokes personal interpretations, but music that is essentially their own; original compositions that transmit authentic emotion.

El Sonido de los Durmientes (Photo: Natasha Ali)

“If we don’t talk about real life, you’re talking about classical papers and that’s what we’ve run away from,” he says. “It’s a process, but the language we’re getting at makes sense.”

The band’s sound is intriguing. To those who are not well versed, the Latin American references would not jump out at you. People expecting the rhythms of Daddy Yankee plucked on a violin would be disappointed. The sound is altogether more complex and the allusions more subtle. Beyond the Argentine references, songs take inspiration from Afro-Peruvian music, as well as Bolivian and Uruguayan beats.

When it hits the right notes it’s fresh, moving and challenging as the almost disquieting violins compliment the more melodic guitar with excellent electronica-esque percussion. In a particularly beautiful moment, one of the violinists breaks into song and holds a clean, almost operatic note, for a few seconds before gliding seamlessly back onto the same note on the violin. The final song, featuring panpipes and an acoustic rather than an electric guitar, was especially accomplished.

During weaker moments, the set did verge towards the more over-the-top bombast of a film score, losing its spark a little. And there are times when you get hints that it is still a work in progress, which, it is important to add, it is.

After the show, Lombardo explained that they are still trying out different musicians, instruments and compositions. “Tonight I’m going to rewrite some parts because certain things didn’t go well,” he explained. “Today we played a lot of new arrangements.” He will make the initial amendments and then the band, with the same dynamics as a rock group, will play around with the songs until they are happy.

They are performing various concerts in the coming months, and according to Lombardo, have been filling out the venues they play for the past year. Their brand of Latin infused classical compositions is proving popular and what’s more, “you don’t need to understand Beethoven to get the music.”