Cementerio de la Chacarita

We spent another two glorious weeks in Buenos Aires, beginning November 20, 2008. The first week was unseasonably hot (90's but welcome) and the second week was perfect (mid 80's). It poured one afternoon and was cloudy the next day. Actually, and I can't believe I'm going to say it, the cloudy day was a welcome reprieve from day after day of perfect blue skies and sunshine. See the photos here.

Last March we bought some bikes, which greatly expanded our opportunities for exploring the city. One of the most fascinating things we explored was this time was Cementerio de la Chacarita. We arrived at a modest, secondary entrance that did not offer a clue to what lay beyond the walls. Yes, walls. The entire place is surrounded by huge walls, like a medieval castle. For some reason, this entrance is identified as Cementerio del Oeste.

We quickly discovered that this cemetery is enormous. Immense. On the order of eight or ten times the size of the touristy Cementerio de la Recoleta. Simply put: It's the largest cemetery in South America.

In the map above (click to enlarge), the Recoleta is outlined in red. Cementerio de la Chacarita is outlined in blue. The yellow dot denotes the location of Casa Palermo. Unlike Recoleta, there were few people here on a Sunday afternoon.

Chacarita was established in 1871 and quickly began accepting victims of the yellow fever epidemic that raged in La Boca and San Telmo. Although less costly to be buried here than in Recoleta, there are many famous Porteños here. Among the most famous is Carlos Gardel, the beloved tango singer, who died in a plane crash in 1935. Each June 26th the area around his burial site is crammed with fans to this day. However, the most famous person buried here was Peron himself (Juan Domingo Peron). In 1987 thieves broke into his vault and severed and took his hands. Some speculate this was done to get his finger prints and access secret Swiss banks accounts. I dunno, seems a bit farfetched to me. Recently, his body was moved to his country home in San Vincente.

One of the fascinating aspects of Cemenerio de la Chacarita is the vast network of underground vaults and niches. There are two sections. One, closer to the part of the cemetery near the main entrance, and seemingly older, has small niches. See next two photos.

Further away from the main entrance is another, larger underground labyrinth, these being on two levels:

Click the photo above to see more detail. This is an extensive underground necropolis, with architecturally interesting access points at ground level. We found a plaque indicating that this was built in 1958.

Of course, the cemetery has blocks and blocks of monumental vaults similar to those found at Recoleta:

We found that vandals had broken into many of these, but the majority are in excellent condition. The "streets" within the cemetery seem to be endless. The following photos is of the main entrance, which we got to see on the way out:

Statistics: 12,000 burial vaults, 100,000 gravesites, 350,000 niches, covering an area of 95 blocks. In addition, there are two contiguous but separate cemeteries: Cementerio Aleman and Cementerio Britanico (We did not get a chance to visit either of these).

Cementerio de la Chacarita is accessible by taking Linea B to the Federico LaCroze station. On the weekends, there is an enormous market in the adjacent park. Larger than any other I have seen in Buenos Aires (at least so far).

Buying Art in Argentina

Last March we agreed to purchase a couple of paintings in Buenos Aires. One was about 14" x 20" and the other 3' x 5'. These were both oil paintings and not "street" art, but rather, fine art (accompanying image is a photo of the larger of the two). The smaller painting cost $200 US and the other $1,500 US. We left the larger one behind because it required restoration.

The seller packaged the smaller painting nicely, but he did not give us a receipt. When we got to the airport (EZE), the American Airlines clerk was very concerned that the painting would be confiscated because we did not have formal documentation evidencing that this was not a national treasure (!). Nor did we have documentation evidencing official permission to take our painting out of the country. He suggested that the police look at it before we took it through customs. Some police guy looked at it, shrugged and said it was up the the customs people upstairs. At this point we were quite nervous, not to mention irritated, but the customs people barely looked at it. My understanding is that some buyers of art have not been so lucky and have had "street art" confiscated or, at minimum, underwent considerable scrutiny before being allowed to depart with their treasure.

My understanding is that galleries are familiar with the regulations and procedures, however, it's not uncommon to buy art either from a vendor or artist at a street market or directly from an artist at his/her studio. I don't know if the artists are aware the regulations and/or the potential problems facing a buyer.

The formal steps required to get official approval to take art from Argentina are rather onerous:

1) Request a appraisal at the Banco Ciudad, which takes at least 24 hours, and,
2) With the appraisal in hand, submit a formal request at the Dirección de Artes Visuales, which is within the Ministry of Culture, to authorize the departure of the work, a procedure that takes about ten days.

I can't imagine that many people do this, but those who don't are at some risk . . . so be aware.

Note: As it turned out, a well qualified friend inspected the larger painting after the restoration was complete and advised us that it would not meet our expectations. So, we ended up declining the purchase. Had we concluded the transaction, I imagine we would have encountered considerable difficulty at the airport. The seller, a minor dealer, didn't say a word about it. As in all transactions, remember the doctrine of caveat emptor (buyer beware).

An article on this topic appears at this link (in Spanish): La Nacion