Cover Culture

Because of its cafe culture, architecture, and reliance on the mustache, Buenos Aires is fairly, albeit reductively, referred to as the "Paris of South America." Its restaurants and bars are often more Italian than Italy (hell, I'm told one of Buenos Aires' popular pastas, the sorrentino, is a local invention What is it? An oversized ravioli. More Italian than Italy indeed). And it seems a good half of Argentina's citizens have Italian or Spanish passports because of those countries' diaspora citizenship laws. This leads to the occasional contretemps: An Argentine friend of a friend used his Italian passport to enter the U.S., as the U.S. doesn't require the expensive entrance visa of EU citizens as it does of Argentines. Sadly, however, the immigration officer tested the visitor's Italian ability. When it turned out he couldn't speak a word, he was told he would be refused entry and sent back to Italy--where, comically, he had never been.

But I digress. The point is that unlike Mexico, which has its mestizo culture and magical realism (think Frida Kahlo; think Mexico City--a city of 22 million built atop an indigenous empire) or Cuba, which blends Africa, America and Spain into something new, Argentina looks in Europe's direction for inspiration and recreates itself in that image.

What this ends up creating, for better or worse, is a Cover Culture. Before I get jumped on for cultural snideness, let me just say that, yes, I understand that Argentina does produce its own ideas (like, say, rock nacional, Peronism, and Tango, though I'd note that the last wasn't accepted into mainstream Argentine culture until the French deemd it trendy). But there is an odd ubiquity of facsimile art.








In the last several weeks, I've walked into the Museo de Bellas Artes with an American friend who couldn't contain a giggle at the raw amount of derivative works (including, for example, Emilio Pettoruti's El Improvisador, a Picasso Lite); been bathed in Beatles covers by local musical heroes like Charly Garcia at nearby restaurant Primi Piatti (among other places); hummed along for the 7 millionth time to a top-selling album of jazzy covers of Prince and The Cure; and realized that repeated exposure now allows me to recite by heart the songs on the v. popular Rolling Stones-via-Brazil cover album Bossa n' Stones.

The breaking point came yesterday when the owner of the local Luna Cafe dug deep into the annals of cover culture for the 1999 Sheryl Crow cover of Guns n' Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine. I hesitate to indulge in too many trite metaphors inspired by such a small sample of music covers--there are covers the world over--but what can it mean that Argentina looks so lovingly toward remixes of comfortable culture? You could say this mirrors the country's ethos--Like Europe, Just a Little Different--but I wonder: Is Argentine creativity hamstrung by its yearnings for Europe?