Buenos Aires: Museo Moderno (+1) and Museo Histórico Nacional

This afternoon in Buenos Aires, I visited the Museo Moderno and the Museo Histórico Nacional, plus a bit of a diversion.

But first, in this morning’s post, after my stroll through Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur, I left you as I was about to grab some lunch. I was getting hungry, so I looked at TripAdvisor and Google Maps for restaurants close to where I exited the park. A couple had good ratings, but when I got to them, they were just street-food stalls with some tables. They didn’t look appetizing.

I wandered around a bit and found a nice-looking, small coffee shop. It sold only coffee and pastries, but I decided to make do with that. I ordered an espresso and a tempting cookie and sat down. (They bring the order to the table and automatically bring a glass of water with an espresso.)

Shortly after I sat down, an exceptionally cute, quiet, well-behaved pug, which I think belongs to the cafe owner, sidled up beside my table, sat down on the floor, and looked up at me with a friendly face. He sat there with the same expression almost the whole time I was there. That was surprisingly pleasant.

Before leaving the cafe, I consulted my walking tour app and TripAdvisor for things to do nearby. One suggestion was Museo de la Cárcova, a small museum that has some plaster reproductions, or reasonable facsimiles thereof, of world-famous statues. Among the statues represented are Michelangelo’s David and the Venus de Milo. It’s been a few years since I was last in Florence and even longer since I’ve been in Paris. I want to go back, I figured I could go to the Museo de la Cárcova and save myself the trips to Florence and Paris.

I consulted Apple Maps, which said it was open. I went there. The gate in the fence around the building was locked, and the building had a look a look of, “Can’t you see I’m closed? Go away. Scram!”

I consulted Google Maps, which told me the museum was closed for Malvinas Day. (I talked a bit about Malvinas Day in my post from this morning about Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur. If you didn’t read that and want to know more about that holiday, I suggest you use the link in the preceding paragraph to read it now.)

Finding it closed, I went back to my sources to look for other nearby sights. I found Museo Moderno, a modern art museum. This time, I checked the hours on Google Maps rather than Apple Maps. It said it was open, but the hours might be changed for Malvinas Day. I did some searching and found the website of the museum, which said it’s open on holidays.

I went there. Or so I thought.

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo

When Google Maps showed me I was there, I found a building with a sign that said it was the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo. I figured, modern art museum, contemporary art museum; sounds similar; it must be the place.

I went in. The admission price was 3,000 pesos (about $3US), payable only by credit card.

it was a rinkydink art gallery. It consisted of four small rooms stacked one above the other—two below ground level, ground level, and one above. All of the rooms contained what I thought was humdrum abstract art, including in one room a table with photos, shredded paper of different colours, a couple of lamps and various other junk seemingly randomly placed. Then again, I’m usually not thrilled with abstract art at the best of times. So, my assessment shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

I stayed for a while, used their toilet, and left.

I found another nearby sight in my sources, Museo Histórico Nacional, and headed there. I didn’t get more than a few steps.

Immediately adjacent and attached to the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, I found another larger building of a somewhat older generation. It turns out, that was the Museo Moderno.

Museo Moderno

The Museo Moderno was free. Although, I read somewhere that it’s free only on Wednesdays. Today is a Wednesday, but it’s also a holiday, so I thought that was why there was a small charge at what I thought was Museo Moderno next door.

The Museo Moderno probably has a little more exhibit space than Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, but not much. The footprint of the building is much larger, but the exhibits span only the first floor. It looked like there was space on the ground floor that was used for exhibits, but it was empty today.

The Museo Moderna exhibits were probably as contemporary as the gallery next door, but it wasn’t all entirely abstract. (Not all, but much of it.)

There was also a temporary exhibit of paintings by “Onome Ekeh, an artist born and raised on either side of the Atlantic, who started out as a painter, transitioned to design, fell in love with film and, somewhere in the collusion, went digital and picked up an Al habit along the way. Her work encompasses film, video, theatre, literature and radio.”

After leaving the Museo Moderno, I went to the Museo Histórico without the need for any further corrective action.

Museo Histórico Nacional

The Museo Histórico Nacional is a small museum covering some of Argentina’s history. Its building is charming, with large red bricks and decorated arched entryways unto a narrow portico in front of the structure. It is set in a lovely, well-treed park.

The museum is free. I went inside and headed toward the first exhibit. Some of the directional signs in the museum giving information like the entrance, the exit, and the name of each exhibit hall were in Spanish and English, but most of the rest of the signage, including descriptive text, was only in Spanish.

I went back to the information desk and asked if there was any English text. The person there told me there wasn’t, but there’s a QR code that will direct me to a web page with English translations.

I figured he meant there was a QR code with each item and, if it looked interesting, I could scan the QR and get the information about that item in English.

That’s not how it worked. There were no QR codes by the items. There was one QR code back at the information desk. I scanned that. It took me to an index page for the exhibit halls. If I clicked on the link for the respective hall, I then got a page with English translations for the text associated with everything in that hall, which could be dozens of items. Each item had a number, which corresponded to a number beside the item in the exhibit hall.

It was very cumbersome. I read a little bit about a couple of items, but then gave up. I wandered through and looked at some paintings of historical figures and scenes, swords, a mockup of a room of national hero San Martin, an elaborate shield, and more.

The exhibit halls were called “Time of the Provinces,” “Revolution time,” “Greatest Hits,” “Painters of History,” and “Back to Voting.”

For the latter two, rather than having online English text, the index page said, “Translations of this exhibition are on the labels.” In the Painters of History room, that was indeed true. The room contained paintings of scenes from Argentina’s history. The title and the painting’s medium listed on the labels were in Spanish and English.

It wasn’t true for the Back to Voting room, but that was primarily because the room didn’t exist. There was a sign in the museum in both Spanish and English, along with in English on the rooms index page, saying that the museum was undergoing remodeling so the rooms might not be as advertised. I guess the Back to Voting room was affected by that.

To be honest, because I found it too cumbersome to scroll through all of the text to find what I wanted, I didn’t get much out of the museum. And didn’t spend all that much time there.

In front of the museum, there’s a lovely courtyard with a few trees. When I left the museum, a small orchestra—brass, woodwinds, and a couple of drums—with the players dressed in casual military outfits—was set up and playing in the courtyard.

They played lively tunes, including a couple for which I think all of the audience except me knew the lyrics to the instrumentals that the orchestra was playing, and they sang along. I stayed around and listened for probably a half a dozen songs and then walked back to my hotel to end the day.

I assume the concert was in honour of Malvinas Day, but I’m not sure.

Along the way

On my walks to the sights today, I passed some pleasant streets. Some had lots of trees. One had a row of restaurants on one side of a block. The restaurants expanded out onto the street with tables in what would have otherwise been parking spaces

I also passed one mural on the wall of a building. The primary figure in it was an elegant lady with a fish on her head. I don’t know why she had a fish on her head, but I mention it because I think a reader might get a kick out of it.

In the painting, below the woman, there were some men who were naked except for thigh-high black leggings. At least, I had the impression they were men, but, despite being naked, they were each missing a particular body part.

Programming note: Tomorrow is it for this Argentina trip. My flight back to Toronto is scheduled to leave at 4:30 in the afternoon, so I’ll have time to do stuff in the morning before I have to leave for the airport. I haven’t anything planned, and I couldn’t find any attractions I haven’t seen that are open in the morning early enough for me to take them in.

I’ll look again in the morning, but I might just do a little more random walking around before I leave Buenos Aires. Even if I don’t do anything worth writing about, I’ll still post an entry that, at a minimum, will provide a summary of my time in Buenos Aires and of this Argentina trip in total.