GRATING SPACE

photos: Jimena Sánchez and Eduardo Guarini

Caos = Belleza
Diente and Piraña (artists)
exhibition opening
at Hollywood in Cambodia
15 Feb., 2008
Show runs until March 9

(note: This review will appear in the next issue of WickedBA magazine, in April)

Before the sun set on a hot Friday in February, a sweat smell stifled the two rooms above the bar Post that make up the Hollywood in Cambodia gallery space. The patrons, in black punk rock band t-shirts or snazzy retro dresses, milled about on the roof and waited for the heat to dissipate.

The show’s title, Caos = Belleza, indicated the distinct ways with which the artists, porteños Diente and Piraña, approach a similar style: a mix of comic and macabre surrealism indebted to punk rock flyer and album art. Piraña’s crisply outlined creatures make up the Belleza half, and reflect the way he looks and lives (clean-dressed, clean-shaven, drug-free). Diente’s is the other, Caótico part: tortured portraiture from the bold brush slops of a hard-drinking boludo who wears the same 7 Seconds shirt every day.

los artistas

The artists spent five days before Caos = Belleza’s opening slathering the walls with impromptu paintings upon and around which they hung their other works. Most began with only an inkling or impulsive hand motion and ended as colorful images that were at once slightly disturbing and strangely amusing. As Piraña brushed the last strokes of some sinister machine-creature onto a gallery wall two days before the opening, Diente and I argued whether it was a factory beast or a submarine demon. Piraña said he simply didn’t know.

As darkness fell upon Palermo, the gallery began to fill. Many attendees were veterans of the BsAs hardcore punk scene who met at shows long ago and have branched out on other endeavors since. One could hardly flip a Quilmes cap without hitting a DJ, photographer, journalist, or painter who had seen his/her share of mosh pits. It seemed something like a hang zone for artistically accomplished punks.

Later, rain pushed everyone inside. The sweat smell in the gallery returned, mixed now with beer. The paintings had been appreciated, the chapbooks had been flipped through, the good times had been had. The sky began to clear, and everyone escaped into the Buenos Aires night.