Buenos Aires Recoleta

Centro Cultural Recoleta. In a bright red edifice neighboring Recoleta’s cemetery and basílica is one of Buenos Aires’ best cultural centers, built in the early 17th century for a group of Franciscan monks. The extensive arched hallways now host up to, if not more than, eight fantastic rotating photography, sculpture, and art exhibits at once displayed in an innovative fashion. Fortunately, the exhibits here lack the institutional quality present in many museums and are a great way to get a feel for what’s going on in Argentine art at this very moment. The center also contains the small Museo Participativo de Ciencias (Interactive Science Museum), intended for children, and hosts a variety of lecture series, classes, movies, and small theater productions. (Junín 1930. S Callao. ☎4803 1040; www.centroculturalrecoleta.org. Center open daily 10am-9pm. Art exhibits open M-F 2-9pm, Sa-Su 10am-9pm. Science museum open M-F 9am-5pm, Sa-Su 2:30-7:30pm. Art exhibits free. Science museum AR$10.)

Museo Xul Solar. Located near Recoleta’s border with Palermo, this small, manageable, excellent museum is devoted to the life and work of early 20th-century porteño painter Xul Solar . Solar devoted much of his youth to traveling Europe, and many of his colorful, modernist paintings have been compared to those of the Symbolists and Surrealists, as well as certain works by Klee. Scattered throughout the museum, however, are some of Solar’s other, perhaps more fascinating pieces, including his highly original Tarot cards, masks, belts, and several impressive pianos with color- and texture-coded keys originally designed to be played by the blind, but also emphasizing the relationship between color and music. There are also small, wooden altars devoted to his “universal religion”—Solar invented universal languages and had an affinity for symbols such as the sun. His name, after all, is a tribute to our celestial neighbor, as well as a replacement for his actual, longer name, Oscar Agustín Alejandro Schulz Solari, which would have been a pain in the ass to sign on a canvas. While perusing the collection, be sure to look around at the building’s design; housed in the Fundación Pan Klub, where Solar spent the last 20 years of his life, the museum’s winding staircases and geometric forms might as well have come directly from his abstract paintings. (Laprida 1212. S Agüero. ☎4824 3302; www.xulsolar.org.ar. Some captions in English. Open Tu-F noon-8pm, Sa noon-7pm. AR$6, local students AR$2. Guided tours Tu and Th 4pm, Sa 3:30pm.)

Museo Nacional De Bellas Artes. Located in a simple red building directly north of the cemetery, Argentina’s foremost art museum boasts a constantly rotating collection of over 10,000 pieces, though the number of works on display at one time is surprisingly modest. The first floor offers a whirlwind tour of European art from the 13th century to the present. Few periods are explored in depth, but what is on display is certainly impressive and usually includes at least one work from artists ranging from Tintoretto, Rubens, Rembrandt, and El Greco to Rodin, Monet, Klee, and Rothko. Those for whom all of this is old hat, however, can head straight upstairs to the second floor, where Argentine art is on display. Though little seems to distinguish the smallish collection of 19th-century works from their European inspirations, the subject matter of a number of paintings is certainly original; keep an eye out, for example, for Cesáreo Quiros’ dramatic series “Los Gauchos.” Still more original and interesting, however, is the massive hall of contemporary Argentine art, including a number of politically dissident works from the 60s and 70s. (Av. Libertador 1473. S Callao. ☎4803 0802; www.mnba.org.ar. Open Tu-F 12:30-7:30pm, Sa-Su 9:30am-7:30pm. Free.)

Palais De Glace. Across Plaza San Martín de Tours from Centro Cultural Recoleta, this large beige “palace” was actually built to house an ice rink, though it later hosted some of the first “high society” dances that served to make tango mainstream acceptable. Today, it’s an art space, drawing a wide variety of temporary exhibits, often one month in duration and usually devoted to a particular contemporary artist. Drop by or check online to see what’s currently being offered. (Posadas 1725. S Callao. ☎4804 1163; www.palaisdeglace.org. Open Tu-F noon-8pm, Sa-Su 10am-8pm. Free. Guided English-language tours Sa-Su 5pm. AR$10.)

Museo De La Deuda Externa (Museum Of External Debt). This museum opened its doors in 2006, just a few years after the 2001 climax of Argentina’s economic crisis, with the mission of explaining how the financial collapse could have happened. It does so by tracing the country’s economic history—and specifically its relationship to foreign debt—from 1810 to the present through a series of fairly technical labels. The displays are drawn from a work of economic history by a father-son team of economists, Alfredo Eric Calcagno and Eric Calcagno, the former and elder an ex-member of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), and the son a sociologist and minister in the Cristina Kirchner government. Needless to say, if you can’t read Spanish, and economics doesn’t get your juices flowing, the museum won’t hold much appeal. If so, however, the museum is a fascinating window into Argentina’s perspective on its own financial situation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the museum has little to say in favor of the IMF’s recommendations from the 1980s on; it approaches the country’s own dealings, and possible missteps, with its money less thoroughly. Don’t miss the powerful Boda de Oro exhibit, one of the few times the museum uses a medium other than words. The argument is fairly polemical, so background knowledge is useful, and makes the exhibits that much more interesting. (Pte. J. E. Uriburu 763, in the basement. S Facultad de Medicina. ☎4370 6105; www.econ.uba.ar. Open M-F noon-8pm. Free.)