Pichincha - Rosario - The Argentine Chicago

I live in Rosario City, Argentina.

There's a neighborhood called Pichincha, which at the beginning of last century was famous for its many brothels.

At the beginning of the 20th century, it was a den of prostitution, mafia gangs, police corruption and disease, at a time when Rosario was called "the Argentine Chicago"; a natural consequence of the unchecked growth of a port city overflowing with poor immigrants and uneducated workers moving in from the countryside.

Pichincha, at one time the city’s red light district and home to the notorious brothel of the equally notorious Madame Safó. Purpose built as an exact replica of a French brothel and decorated with the finest French furniture, the journalist Albert Londres exclaimed in 1927 that it was like “finding a miniature homeland when you’re far from home. Inside, everyone speaks French. The patroness is from Montmartre.”

Nowadays, people can visit its fairs, the old train station Rosario Norte —which today houses the Department of Culture and the Museo de la Memoria— or have a coffee or a drink in its bars with tables on the tree-lined sidewalks.

I have created a painting and collage series,: titled “Pichincha Girls”, inspired by this neighborhood and dedicated to all the women that had been part of our history.

Showing in the slideshow are some paintings of this Series, most of them belongs to a lady who lives in Chicago and she has bought them to me.

Enjoy!

Patricia Vidour



http://www.patriciavidour.com

Conceptual Art Painting a Tribute to Lucio Fontana

All art is in a sense conceptual, all art relies upon images and utilises the imagination.
Lucio Fontana was born in Rosario city, Argentina in 1899. The artist left Argentina for Italy to study at the Brera Academy in Milan.
Soon after he was taking part in shows and competitions in Italy, Spain and Argentina, including the Triennale, Milan, the Venice Biennale and the Quadriennale in Rome.
He also began to work as a ceramicist, winning various competitions for his sculptures. In 1946, Fontana collaborated with young artists and intellectuals in Buenos Aires on a draft of the White Manifesto, which signaled the birth of Space Art in 1947.

I was born and I live in Rosario City, Argentina. The city were Lucio Fontana was born. And he has left to the rosarinos artist a way to follow.

As a sculptor, he experimented with stone, metals, ceramics, and neon; as a painter he attempted to transcend the confines of the two-dimensional surface. In a series of manifestos originating with the Manifesto blanco (White Manifesto) of 1946, Fontana announced his goals for a“spatialist” art, one that could engage technology to achieve an expression of the fourth dimension. He wanted to meld the categories of architecture, sculpture, and painting to create a groundbreaking new aesthetic idiom.
From 1958, Fontana purified his paintings by creating matte, monochrome surfaces, thus focusing the viewer’s attention on the slices that rend the skin of the canvas.

'Concept Spatiale', 1959 painting by Lucio Fontana, 100 cm. x 125 cm.

• The evolution of art is something internal, something philosophical and is not a visual phenomenon. Lucio Fontana 1972

The following painting is my tribute to the Rosarine Artist Lucio Fontana. I have titled my painting: Cosmic Couple.