May 25th, 2006

Just our luck. Coming in to town we find out that every hotel room in town is booked due to some Evangelistic convention, some sport championship, and another event we don’t even remember. We came to the town of Resistencia to see for ourselves at least a small portion of the some three hundred sculptures scattered in the area. I was really excited about this place, so we stored our backpacks with a very nice hotel manager and for about five hours roamed the streets.

What we found was very interesting, but it wasn’t only statues. It was the day of 25th of May, and we should have guessed there will be a celebration in every town in Argentina on this date, as pretty much every city, town, and village, we’ve visited so far had a “twenty fifth of May” plaza. It was something like the Argentinean Independence Day, the history of which I’m going to spare you. The streets were full of people, and the children were dressed in national costumes. Also was there a parade featuring about everyone in town, almost to the point that we were wondering who were the people watching this thing if all the schools, clubs, and organizations in town were in the parade with all their members.

On an artistic note, I did feel bad for the statues. Their amount trivialized their presence and existence. As they were everywhere, the citizens of Resistencia didn’t recognize them anymore as precious art, but as just something, just like anything else, on the street. People were using them as benches, or bicycle racks, and street vendors leaned their merchandise agains them. Perhaps there is a reason a piece of art should stay in a museum, on the other hand, even though they might not notice or appreciate it much, the fact that art is always in front of your face, on the street, has made the life of Resistencia’s occupants better.

Tags: art, festival
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