In the wake of Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis, Jorge Macchi, in collaboration with María Negroni and Edgardo Rudnitzky, created this tour of Buenos Aires that embraces the arbitrary at a moment when the country seemed to be spiraling out of control. After smashing a pane of glass onto a map of the city, the eight lines resulting from the fractures determined the possible “tour routes.” Macchi selected 46 locations at random to visit along these paths, thus inventing his own arbitrary representation of the city.

The guide’s various components, many of which relate to tourism, form an intimate microcosm reflecting the time and place from which they originated. A map, itself a representation of reality, highlights the eight routes, while Negroni’s text describes each location, and the sounds Rudnitzky recorded at these sites provide an aural accompaniment. Along with other items – such as a Catholic missal, a sheet of stamps featuring Eva Perón, a handwritten English-Spanish dictionary, and postcards reproducing objects discovered along the routes—these elements construct an idiosyncratic social space that few porteños themselves could hope to discover. In mixing the historically significant with the trivial, Buenos Aires Tour rejects the predetermined and instead invites viewers to explore the Argentine capital by allowing chance to guide the way.

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Source: Blanton Museum of Art