The Art of Recession.(Argentina)(Brief Article)

On a recent Friday afternoon on the Buenos Aires subway, a shuffling salesman tries to interest passengers in toiletries from a shabby hold- all. Nobody pays much attention. With Argentina suffering its fourth year of a savage depression, the subway is full of desperate street sellers, beggars with hard-luck stories and kids asking for loose change. But heads start to turn when one passenger asks to buy a razor. "Wouldn't you prefer some toilet paper?" the salesman asks, apparently unwilling to satisfy the request. After a shouted argument, it turns out the "salesman" has nothing in his bag to sell. But by that time most of the passengers have figured out that the pair are actors. They've spent the past few minutes immersed in a bit of street theater.

Bad economic times would be expected to fuel a rise in dark humor. But Argentina's recession has sparked a boom across all genres of art, from opera to film to painting. Despite plunging incomes, Buenos Aires's cultural centers are doing brisk business. A talented group of film directors is attracting international attention with a series of bold, gritty works. Says Hugo Caligaris, director of the arts section of Argentine daily La Nacion, "We often have more ads in the entertainment section than the rest of the paper put together. Cars and apartments are not selling right now. The entertainment industry is one of the only things that is still working."

That's partly because of the high value that Argentines continue to place on culture. The Buenos Aires government still spends 5 percent of its budget (or $42 million) on the arts, even though its coffers have shrunk by 10 percent. And voters, who are otherwise fed up with their leaders, are not complaining. Says Jorge Telerman, the Buenos Aires City Council's cultural secretary, "Today society viscerally rejects the state. But while people call for cuts in military or political spending, nobody wants cuts in culture."

For their part, institutions are finding creative ways of profiting from their setbacks. Following the massive currency devaluation, Buenos Aires's grand and slightly decaying opera house, the Teatro Colon, found itself unable to attract top international artists. Instead, it turned to lower-paid local performers and chopped ticket prices. On Monday nights the theater now offers admission for just two pesos (less than $1). As a result, the number of performances is up by 40 percent and attendance by half. Telerman says the changes have opened the door to new voices. "A few years ago the press would have destroyed me if I had tried something like that," he says, referring to the lack of international stars in the state-funded Colon's productions. "Now, on the contrary, they appreciate the promotion of Argentine artists. The crisis has helped us value what we have."

Indeed, artists in several different disciplines are drawing inspiration from the country's plight. Gallery owner Horacio Dabbah says that during the prosperous 1990s, Argentine art was "pretty light and frivolous. Now it is less banal... The crisis has sharpened the senses." The public is in tune with the new mood. At last July's ArteBA 2002, an art festival that Dabbah helped organize, "sales were extraordinary, beyond our ...