L ABORATORY OF CONTEMPORANEITY : THE MARCO OF L A B OCA

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INTRODUCTION
In 2014, the Tres Pinos Foundation bought, in the neighborhood of La Boca (Buenos Aires), the former Kalisay cinema to build there the museum MARCO (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo), a space for contemporary art. The building, a 1913 art nouveau styled construction by French architect Alfred Massüe (Figure 1), is protected by the City's

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Monuments Law 1 and had to be reconditioned to create exhibition galleries and host the Foundation's art collection (owned by the Cardenas family 2 ).

Source: Museo MARCO, Fundación Tres Pinos
The MARCO, officially opened in 2018, is Buenos Aires's second art museum to adopt the denomination of "contemporary" (the first is the MACBA -Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires, owned by Aldo Rubino 3 and located in San Telmo, a neighborhood right next to La Boca). The use of the category of contemporary in the name is indicative of the relevance of that segment of the art scene to the Tres Pinos Foundation and can also be explained in relation to the District of the Arts Project, a government program that aimed to gentrify the southern areas of the city of Buenos Aires (mainly, San Telmo and La Boca).
Within its 700 square meters, the MARCO has two big exhibition galleries (Figure 2), spaces for residents, and a shop dedicated to contemporary art publications, designed objects and graphic artworks by famous Argentinian artists. The project imagined by the Tres Pinos Foundation was, fundamentally, to create a space for experimentation, a laboratory where artists could test material and conceptual conditions and, that way, develop the already numerous collections of the Cadenas family, "… around 850 artworks, besides thousands of pieces of graphic art, drawings and reproductions" (Chatruc, 2019). 4 1 The Law #1227/06 determines the protection, preservation, restauration, promotion, transmission and administration of the city's cultural patrimony, understood as a tool for social development and identity formation. The public agency in charge of its application is the Ministry of Culture of the City of Buenos Aires. 2 Ricardo Cadenas, a renowned surgeon, and his wife Alicia started collecting in the 1980s and had acquired, by the time of MARCO's opening, more than 800 works of art.
3 Aldo Rubino is an acclaimed collector and curator of contemporary art (especially, Latin American and Argentine geometric abstraction). He is the Founder and President of MACBA, was the manager director of Wells Fargo Financial Advisors and is currently the managing director of Jeffries NY Financial Services. 4 Traslated from Spanish to English by Jonathan Feldman: ""… unas 850 obras, además de miles de piezas de arte gráfico, dibujos y reproducciones" (Chatruc 2019, n/p). For example, the opening exhibition was dedicated to Jorge Caterbetti, a contemporary artist who, although specializes in audiovisual productions, exercises a multidisciplinary practice. His works are conceptual and frequently critique social and political realities through different techniques.2 At MARCO, he presented "Errata"3, a series of intervened books that refer to the random nature of creation.4 The materials used include paper, canvas, etched glass, flexi glass, metal, wood, insects and organic residue. As for the techniques, he presents burnt, drawn, knitted and deconstructed books, installations, sculptures and videos ( Figure 3).

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The MARCO laboratory would function through a diversity of strategies and actions in several ways. First, "Collection in Dialogue", a program that invites emerging artists to present or create artworks and exhibit them with pieces of their choice by consolidated names already part of the Cadenas Collection. For example, the second exhibition MARCO produced -"Cosas que ojo no vio" (Things that the Eye did not see) -was dedicated to Tucuman's artistin-residence Gabriel Chaile, whose artworks were in dialogue with Antonio Berni and León Ferrari's.1 Chaile built "70 veces 7" (Seventy times seven), a cube made from exposed bricks attached to an internal metallic structure with metal chord (Figure 4). He made 7 holes to each brick (700 in total), forming a sort of language or music score. Inside the cube lays a painted egg, which color is similar to the brick structure, making it difficult to separate one from the other.2 As for the other pieces, Chaile chose "Paisano con hornero" (Countryman with baker) by Berni and"Rua 1980" (Street 1980) by Ferrari ( Figure 5). The first is a small hand painted egg that shows an image of two birds intertwined with a tree and forest in the background, while the second is a heliographic diazotype on paper from the series "Collection photos and battles" that depicts a map of an imaginary city   Here, the roles of artist and public slightly merge, since visitors can affect the work of art by their presence during production, while interaction is encouraged by not isolating or glass-boxing (Wylie, 2020) the "laboratory" or experimental space from the exhibitionary complex. While the artists were working, passersby could enter the window-like workshops, which are right next to the big exhibition area, talk to the artists, ask questions and even make suggestions. This type of interaction creates a space for dialogue and discussion between artists and audiences (Meyer, 2011), and it was frequent to find curators visiting the workshops, which fosters conversations between them and the public as well. Also, the variety of materials and disciplines configure a series of heterogeneous productions that connect to each other, since the presence of residents was synchronic and, thus, the artists created their projects together. The resulting exhibitions -individual and collective-sometimes overlapped with one another over a short period of time. For instance, in 2019 Alfredo Dufour's "No me digas 'entiendo'" (Don't tell me 'I understand') was shown from December 1 st to March 31 st , while Carlos Cima presented "Las teorías conspirativas de mi familia" (My family's conspiracy theories) from March 1 st to June 30 th . The purpose of having two residents' 1A description and visit to the workshops can be seen in the following video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=101990930684450 (06/07/2022). 2 The Usina del Arte is located in a former power station from 1916, a building made by Italian architect Giovanni Chiogna. Its 15,000 square meters include music halls (with a symphonic room for 12,000 people), a movie theatre and several exhibition galleries. 3 In 2018, the residents were Laura Ojeda Bar (Buenos Aires), Carlos Cima (Buenos Aires), Alfredo Dufour (San Juan), Matías Ercole (Buenos Aires), Cecilia Azniv Lutufyan (Salta), Carolina Martínez Pedemonte (Buenos Aires), Mauricio Poblete (Mendoza) and María Sábato (Buenos Aires). The following year, the list includes Gaspar exhibitions coexist for a month relates to MARCO's objectives of building a collaborative platform for young emerging artists to develop their practice. It is relevant to point out that "MARCO Arte Foco" featured young emerging artists from all around the country, an action that defies the centrality of the city of Buenos Aires within the local art field, as well as residents from Chile, Italy, Spain and Canada. Therefore, the program helped the de-centering of artistic practices through an exercise of what Claire Bishop (2013) referred as "radical museology", a curatorial operation that disrupts hegemonic narratives. "MARCO Arte Foco" was suspended in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and there are currently no immediate plans to resume the program. 4 The third strategy to bring this laboratory to life is a public programming that includes guided visits (with education professionals, curators and artists), conferences and special events. Among the most interesting proposals are "Cover" (a cycle of exhibits by participants of the Artists Program of Di Tella University, a contemporary experimental program for emerging artists), "LAV" (a project to create and show an archive of Mexican activists Mónica Meyer and Lorena Wolffer, and Argentine artist Diana Schufer), "Dupla" (an invitation for curators, critics and artists to read writings of others or themselves with a live audience), "Taller Libro Bomba" (a workshop for children ages 8 to 15 to create books), "Fantasmas en La Boca" (Ghosts in La Boca) (walking tours themed with ghost stories and urban legends of the neighborhood) and the open calls for video artists to produce content related to different themes, such as the environment or gender violence. 4 In 2022, the Tres Pinos Foundation, which owns and manages the MARCO, opened a gallery named "Arte Foco" within the Museo Campo Cañuelas (also owned by Tres Pinos and located on the outsides of Buenos Aires), dedicated to temporary exhibitions. Although the name remains, the residencies are not part of the program.

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These actions are complementary to the exhibition programming and the collection of MARCO, but at the same time they stimulate conversations between different audiences and expand the museum's scope of action by going beyond its walls towards its surroundings. In this sense, these projects attract publics that would normally not visit a museum but are interested in the neighborhood's history, thus having direct social effects. If considered together, these strategies serve the purpose of creating an image of contemporary art and contemporaneity under specific terms and objectives. As Mary Anne Staniszewski (2001) points out: "Exhibitions, like the artworks themselves, represent what can be described as conscious and unconscious subjects, issues, and ideological agendas" (p. xxii). When considered as medium, exhibits also act as an interface between spectators' bodies and the artworks on display, as well as with the architecture of the space itself, under a specific political and ideological frame of thought (Ferguson, 2005;O'Neill, 2012). At a more general level, institutional programs like MARCO's -not only exhibitions, but also public programs like guided visits, artists workshops or the "Taller de Libro Bomba", as well as social-engaged projects like "Fantasmas en La Boca"have the power to build identities, representations, to show -and hide-aspects of social culture and historical memory. This article will analyze how memories, representations and identities are forged, and how MARCO -part of a larger cultural network expands in the south of the City of Buenos Aires-partially permeates an otherwise hegemonic, centered, perspective creating an effective laboratory of contemporaneity.

EXHIBITIONS, REPRESENTATION AND CONTEMPORANEITY
Exhibitions and public programs have been a privileged vehicle for art productions. Institutions carry on their mission and objectives through shows, workshops, conferences and visits, among other strategies. In doing so, they put forth a cultural construct aimed to build an image of themselves and of what they represent. In this sense, Mary Anne Staniszewski studied the history of exhibitions at MoMA, and found installation display to be one of the most effective tools for representing ideological perspectives, projecting an institutional image to the public and building memory (or, more accurately, memories) (2001). The author mentions an experimental phase of installation display between the 1920s and 1960s, with intense activity during the 1950s. She identifies elements such as lighting, color of the walls and display structures (for instance, Frederick Kiesler's L and T types, the experiments of the art vanguards or even Bayer's architecture and furniture gallery) as main players in creating an institutional presentation card (pp. 4-10).
Another author that considers exhibitions as a way of creating identities and representations is Bruce Ferguson: Exhibitions are publicly sanctioned representations of identity, principally, but not exclusively, of the institutions which present them. They are narratives which use art objects as elements in institutionalized stories that are promoted to an audience (…) The "voices" heard within exhibitionsthe number and kind of dead artists, the number and kind of women, the kind and number of media, etc.constitute a highly observable politics, with representations as their currency and their measure of equality in a democratic process (2005, p. 126) Ferguson considers exhibitions from a critical yet semiotic point of view, equating them to rhetoric, related to strategic systems of representation. The author refers to the semiotic turn in the arts field as a partial point of view, since treating art as a semiotic object did not restructure the artwork's status as a special and autonomous experience. In this sense, the role of museums (and exhibitions in general) has come into inquiry as these institutions have the power to build public narratives and, thus, whoever controls their agendas will have an upper hand in shaping social identities. Ferguson explains that, for these purposes, every resource available to and at an exhibition (such as architecture, colors, lighting, labels, security structure, curatorial mediation, brochures and Check for Updates catalogues, etc.) comes together to build a hierarchical system of significances, in other words, follows a specific plan to create a particular imaginary. At the same time, he considers them in terms of economy of culture, as products that circulate within a capitalist structure. From this perspective, a program of exhibits can provide clues to an institution's view on certain social issues and problematics, but also of their place within the field, within the tension of public-private relations.
At MARCO, the exhibition program is primarily focused on contemporary art, and its intersection with the Tres Pinos's collection.
The shows are organized mainly in three types: artists of the residency program, dialogues between emerging (sometimes, artists in residence) and consolidated firms from the collection; and emerging non-resident artists invited by the institution.
The first group is formed by participants in the residency programs of 2018 and 2019. The first of these exhibits was Alfredo Dufour's "No me digas 'entiendo'" (from 12/01/2018 to 03/31/2019), who built an installation that occupied the entire gallery through drawings on the walls (originally made in a computer using Paint) completed with objects from daily life and precarious materials he collected from the streets. He also created frame by frame animations to add a ludic element to the show. The drawn walls play with some of art's most established ideas, such as Da Vinci's concept of perspective, or the idea of art as an open window to the world 1 (with drawings of actual windows).
Following Dufour's exhibition, during 2019, there were solo shows by Carlos Cima, Ramiro Quesada Pons and Laura Ojeda Bar. Cima worked with big format paintings, referencing family moments and spaces the artist knows. He based his visuality in family photos and portrayed not only his parents, siblings, etc., but also objects from his day-to-day life, especially those involved in rituals such as parties and anniversaries (flowers, center pieces, birthday cakes, etc.) ( Figure 6). 2  (2003), Da Vinci and the Renaissance artists invented the notion of perspectivewhich was later technically perfected and simplified-as a way of negating the material surface of the painting, to make the artwork a "window to the world", a transparent artifact of vision to "reality". Specifically, the concept of perspective can be defined, for Panofsky, as a geometrical construction produced by considering a visual center of point, from which all figures and forms follow "visual rays" to determine their relative position and size/volume. Once sketched, the structural "map" can be transferred to another drawing to obtain the projected perspective (pp. 11-12). In other words, it is a system to create an illusory plastic space: an intellectual and cultural construction, corresponding to a specific representation of the world at a certain time in history (Francastel, 1998, p. 154 . Quesada Pons's exhibit, called "La imagen definitiva" (The definite image) is a site-specific installation conceived as the last part of a trilogy of exhibitions began in 2017. 1 The installation includes a few metallic sculptures made to look like spiders, with the head made with stone and the metallic legs nailing photos or digital paintings to the floor and walls, thus providing a connection to art history while updating its genres and styles ( Figure 7). Finally, Ojeda Bar's exhibit was called "Una es la medida del mundo" (One [self] is the measure of the world) 2 and it included pieces the artists had made in the previous 10 years, experimenting with media as well as materials.
The result was a heterogeneous aesthetic and a multidisciplinary series of works that subvert certain categories of art ( Figure 8). None of the other residents had solo shows, but some of them did participate in group shows and the "Collection in dialogue" program.

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These three exhibitions share their multidisciplinary nature in terms of materials used, artistic languages presented and/or incorporating elements from other fields of knowledge and even daily life. The references to the art world and to the extra-artistic intertwine and are transversal to the four shows. On the other hand, the program itself is aesthetically heterogeneous, with no hegemonic narrative or style. In this sense, the exhibitions and the artworks exemplify some of the characteristics of contemporary art as understood by authors like Arthur Danto (2009), Terry Smith (2006 or Andrea Giunta (2014).
Danto concentrates on the lack of "dominant narratives" and of a teleological perspective after the Age of Manifestos -that is, modern art-as characteristics of contemporary art. In his view, the heterogeneity of styles is accompanied by a different use of the past and the future: contemporary art, which appearance he locates in the 1960s, doesn't negate the past but reconfigures it, and doesn't project the future as a lineal evolution. Terry Smith (2006) shares Danto's view of contemporary art but adds the idea of the presence of a multiplicity of times with an emphasis on the present. He uses some examples to illustrate the idea of several times coexisting in one same artwork and then defines contemporary art as "…that which emerges from within the conditions of contemporaneity (…) but which projects itself through and around these, as an art of that which actually is in the world, of what it is to be in the world, and of that which is to come" (p.692). This view incorporates the idea of using time differently, of a constant present. Giunta (2014), a scholar who researches contemporary art from a South American perspective, locates its first symptoms in some experiences of the sixties, and, like Danto, speaks of a multiplicity of styles and times. The author affirms the modern regime is in crisis and the drive of the present, of the immediate, is hegemonic in current times. She also sustains the model of center and periphery has become obsolete and invalid (p. 6).
The program of exhibitions at MARCO is of a heterogeneous nature. As mentioned, all shows by initial residents have experimented with a multiplicity of materials, media and disciplines. The second group, which presented emerging artists in dialogue with consolidated names, was no different. Gabriel Chaile's show with Berni and Ferrari can be considered the first of the "Collections in Dialogue" series. It was followed by an exhibit of Bruno Del Giudice, Agustín González Goytía and Lucrecia Lionti (Figure 9). 1 Check for Updates Del Giudice built "Río'tsunami" (River'tsunami), an installation composed by two paintings made with acrylic and spray paint on a canvas created with graphic ad paper, on a structure built from recycled gas pipes from the area of La Salada 1 , the market the artist depicts in his paintings ( Figure 10). The work references social inequity, since people that work at La Salada are under precarious employment conditions. 2 His work was displayed together with Antonio Berni's "Monte santiagueño" (Santiago mountain), a quiet landscape that acts as a counterpart to the noise in Del Giudice's installation. With a total surface of 20 hectares and around 6,600 shops, originally illegal, the fair's main products are apocryphal copies of main brands of clothing. Throughout the years, most shop owners started paying taxes and the market's management made arrangements with the local governments to implement specific socio-economic politics for the area. La Salada added two more properties to the main venue, and it is estimated that more than 20,000 people visit the market every day, yet its legal status is currently in a grey area, since laws have been adapted to allow certain activities, but most products are still apocryphal. (Benecia & Canevaro, 2017, pp. 176-178). Also, employment laws and regulations are not followed, and complaints over labor exploitation were filled ("Rescatamos a 36 víctimas…", 2018). 2 Visit the following link to watch a video of the artist's working process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SEPvZ0jq0g (06/13/2022).

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González Goytía produced "Variaciones sobre 'Álamo' de Alfredo Gramajo Gutiérrez" (Variations on 'Poplar Tree' by Alfredo Gramajo Gutiérrez, which is a series of two canvases exhibited on a mirror that depict a daytime and a nighttime version of Gramajo Gutiérrez's work (Figure 11). 1 In this installation, the original painting is displayed next to González Goytía's variations. The simultaneous presence of the original piece and the updated version creates an intergenerational nexus and incorporates González Goytía to a historiography of local art.  (Figure 12). The reference to a local history of art is expressed in a similar way than with González Goytía's piece. Here, as proposed by Danto and Smith, the past is reconfigured to create contemporary artworks that speak not only of art history, but also, about the present.

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It is relevant to point out that these shows (Chaile's and the group show) present the works of artists that participated in the residency program or received fellowships/aid from the Tres Pinos Foundation (that is Lionti's case). In contrast, "Trama Sinfónica" (Symphonic Weft) (Figure 13)   The experimental nature of the MARCOexpressed, for instance, through the creation of these workshops and residencies-is used as a part of a positioning strategy. In other words, the laboratory of contemporaneity, that is MARCO legitimizes its own productions, artists and collection through their programs. In this case, the residents are included in a canonical history of art and the institution positions itself as an important player in the contemporary art field.
At the same time, the artworks displayed at these exhibitions describe experiments made for MARCO: they are site and time specific, and the artists produced as though they were at a laboratory, with a try and failure logic: they experiment with materials, themes, traditions, 1 Traslated from Spanish to English by Jonathan Feldman: ""Un artista se expone, pero no pretende que lo que exhibe sea su definitiva desnudez. Sabe que todos sospechamos que eso no es posible. Tampoco se expone en un trance cualquiera de su vida: un artista se expone perception. In this sense, it is relevant to remember Reinaldo Laddaga's definition of current (contemporary) art: Artists expose themselves but don't pretend to exhibit their definite nudity. They know we all suspect that's not possible. Also, they don't expose themselves in just any trance of their lives: an artist exhibits himself in the course of operating on himself. What he shows is not so much 'life as it is' but a phase of life (of his life) under controlled conditions (Laddaga, 2010, p. 11)1 Laddaga continues to describe this "laboratorylike aesthetic" as a way of producing contemporary art: the artists conceive their work within a network of relations; they en el curso de realizar una operación sobre sí mismo. Lo que nos muestra no es tanto "la vida (o su vida) como es", sino una fase de la vida (o de su vida) que se despliega en condiciones controladas" (Laddaga 2010, p.11).

experiment
with materials (usually incorporating extra-artistic textures and objects) and themes. They turn to remote and recent art history and form collections of images, texts, sounds to update tradition. Contemporary art, for Laddaga, recognizes its own contingent and collaborative nature, the relevance of experience and of considering art's bond with science and other fields of knowledge (p.19-22).
In the exhibits mentioned above, these characteristics are easily identified: the artists in residence work simultaneously and produce in situ at the workshops 1 , they experiment with the use of materials and media, with the retelling/re-versioning of tradition and history (not just of art, but also national and world history) and even with their own relation to other artists -mainly, from the Tres Pinos's collection. Most of the shows are conceived as collaborations (either with other artists and institutions or with curators, for instance) and emerge from presenting parts of their lives but also taking the public into consideration. The third type of shows at MARCO is dedicated to artists -mostly, emerging-invited to participate with commissioned work. These include the inaugural "Errata" by Jorge Caterbetti (mentioned above), "Enlightening/Iluminarse" by María Bouquet, Kenny Lemes's "Venus Perversa" (Wicked Venus), "Rep(úb)lica" (Rep[ub]lic) by Alexis Minkiewicz, Ana Clara Soler's "Futuras Cavernas" (Future Caverns), "Bomba de brillo/Espectacular" (Glitter Bomb/Spectacular) by Cynthia Cohen, an anthology called "From Paris to Buenos Aires" with works by Juan Stoppani and Jean Yves Legavre; and "El Atajo" (The Shortcut) by José Luis Landet.
Bouquet produced a series of light sculptures made with 15-color and 5-squence led lights on wood, each with different shapes (mostly geometrical) and colors, and displayed hanging from the walls or on the floor, with black painted walls and darkness inside the gallery ( Figure 14). The project was sponsored by Fundación Melián 2 and the Ministry of Culture of the City of Buenos Aires. The artist references some cultures that have studied geometrical shapes constantly present in nature and builds mathematical configurations that result in different light usage. 3

Figure 14 -Installation view of exhibition "Enlightening", with works by María Bouquet
Source: Museo MARCO, Fundación Tres Pinos 1 Laddaga mentions that contemporary art is an experience more similar to visiting an artist's studio than to going to a modern museum (p. 11). At MARCO, the workshops combine both instances, since visits while in production were allowed but the exhibitions opened at a separate space, a gallery close to the workshops/studios. 2 Fundación Melián de Arte y Cultura Latinoamericana (Melián Foundation of Latin American Art and Culture) was born in 2011 in the city of Córdoba, Argentina (the second largest city in the country, after Buenos Aires), and it is a non-governmental non-profit private venture. With presence in Brasil as well as Argentina, it promotes and supports art projects and emerging artists from South America. Since its creation, Fundación Melián has organized exhibitions, has contributed to the realization of artists' projects, and has funded the participation of galleries and artists in international events such as fairs (Context art Miami, Shganghai Art Fair, among others) and biennials. 3 A video is available at: https://www.facebook.com/paseopedrodemendoza/videos /362888810953631/ (06/13/2022).

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Lemes presented a series of photographs where that deconstruct the notions of beauty, love and gender through transforming the image of Venus ( Figure 15). All photos were taken in private homes, thus reflecting intimate spaces and situations while recovering a certain performative element.

Source: Image courtesy of Paseo de las Artes Mendoza
Minkiewicz reversions and deconstructs the statute of the triumphant Republic that lays on top of the Congress building in Buenos Aires to symbolically move "The Republic" to La Boca. 1 The figure of the Lady Republic is inverted: it hangs unstably from the ceiling, in order to point at the country's present reality and it lost its laurels, cart and reins ( Figure 16). 2 The artist also highlights the colonial nature of the original monument, built at the ends of the 19 th century when Argentina's political program was to reappropriate European culture and symbols as its own.

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Soler's exhibition functions as a curated installation: it's formed by paintings, sculptures and pieces of clothing, as well as a notebook with the artist's writings, and it creates a scene that refers to contemporary life and pays tribute to cave paintings, with images that reference animals and natural phenomena ( Figure 17). 1 Lastly, Landet intervenes the entire gallery with installations created after a long process of research and resignification of images, words and even sounds. Paintings, drawings and collages were placed not just on the walls, but also in wooden structures made by the artist, including a desk, counters and a big open-building-like installation with ramps and halls that publics could wander around. 1

CONTEMPORARY EXPERIMENTS: EXPANDING A DE-CENTERED VIEW
Unlike the productions made by artists in residence at the workshops offered by MARCO, the pieces for the third type of shows are made in the artists' studios. In this sense, the museum "black boxes" the experimental character of the artworks by not allowing audiences to see the laboratory, the creative process. This disconnection between experiments and display was pointed out by Caitlin Donahue Wylie (2020) when referring to certain museums, the author mentions Latour, who affirms "Black boxes contain unknown, unquestioned processes that transform inputs into outputs" (Latour, cit. in Wylie, 2020, p. 619 general-don't always have the need to explain artworks, but do share with science museums the desire to create a pleasant experience for visitors, to make them feel welcome, to make their programs accessible and understandable for large audiences. Wylie also mentions museums, even when they display experiments in glass-boxes "… practice the art of omission (…) Glassboxing, therefore, presents a view of science that differs from backstage science: it is selective and self-conscious" (pp. 629-630). Art museums plan their display strategies, select artworks (therefore, leave aside other productions) and edit information. They are, in fact, selective and self-conscious.
Contrary to this definition, the workshops at MARCO function as artist studios: visitors can interact with the artists; they can affect their production by asking questions, making observations or simply being there. There are no separations or glasses inside these spaces (although the studios themselves have glass windows that overlook the street and allow passersby to see the work just like a glass-boxed gallery). In this sense, it is similar to what Morgan Meyer (2011) identifies at museums like the Deutsches Museum, where they built the open research laboratory, that "… carries out and shows 'live' research in the field of nanotechnology. The aim of this laboratory is fivefold: the presentation, explanation, display and discussion of nanotechnology, as well as carrying out research activities" (p. 262).
Meyer explains how the museum shows research in the making and, that way, involves the public in the conversation. Also, since the lab belongs to a university research institute, there's also an education program where students and researchers can interact, ask questions and even change the work being done. The open laboratory, for Meyer, is an instance of dialogue and experience, where processes are more important than results. In this sense, MARCO's workshops and residencies allow conversations between the artists, the public, curators and other museum professionals such as educators, conservators, historians and display designers. Just like the Deutsches Museum, MARCO is populated by objects that "… perform work (like a microscope), objects that display and explain work (like models used for demonstrations), and objects that focus and frame attention on the performance and explanation of work (posters and information boards, signs)" (p. 266). The exhibits shown at MARCO have transformative potential because they foster these dialogues, these exchanges, these experiences.
Furthermore, the MARCO museum opens up to its community through various actions: first, visits, conferences and education programs. Second, through special projects like the "Taller de Libro Bomba", where kids are invited to produce their own books, or organizing visits to the neighborhood (like with the program "Fantasmas en La Boca"). This openness, this needs to go beyond the walls of the museum and reach out to the community changes the traditional role of museums as temples, as places of rituality, of contemplation, spaces that exist outside of daily -mundanelife. In this line, it is also relevant to consider the architecture of MARCO as part of its project. In this sense, Carol Duncan (2007Duncan ( [1995) and Michaela Giebelhausen (2006) have pointed out the relevance of architecture in museums. Duncan considers museums to be places where certain rituals are performed, and the purpose is to mold human behavior. In her view, museums are like temples because they require the same type of liminal attention (to differentiate artworks from other type of productions and contemplate them as such) and the same kind of performativity (bodies moving and acting in a specific way -for instance, no eating is allowed-, different from how they normally move and act). In her view, architecture can affect the way that ritual is performed because it creates meaning (for instance, if the building looks like a Greek temple, its contents will have an aura of sacredness). Giebelhausen, on her part, considers museum architecture as a determinant factor in terms of viewing conditions, thus affecting visitor experience and identitary representations (p. 42). The author believes architecture can change the way artworks are experienced, the way the Check for Updates performance is played, because it is as significant -in semiotic terms-as any other element or resource. This view is shared by Bruce Ferguson (2005), who assures: The system of an exhibition organizes its representations to best utilize everything, from its architecture which is always political, to its wall colorings which are always psychologically meaningful, to its labels which are always didactic (even, or especially, in their silences), to its artistic exclusions which are always powerfully ideological and structural in their limited admissions, to its lighting which is always dramatic (p.

128)
When considering the museum as a whole (including its exhibition programs), its architecture has the same relevance as the exhibit design, the lighting, the labeling, etc. At MARCO, the architecture defines certain possibilities and conditions for public spectatorship (especially because the building used to be a cinema and its style and former use affect both meaning and experience). However, there is flexibility in terms of design and production development. For example, the space -even within the limits of the traditional "white cube" (O'Doherty, 2011)was transformed to host shows like "Rep(úb)lica", "Río'tsunami, "Trama Sinfónica" and "Bomba de Brillo/Espectacular", where it is used in a variety of different ways and reconditioned to display different types of artworks, media and formats. This plasticity of the architecture, which does not define the museum or its contents like traditional 1 Since the Covid-19 pandemic, MARCO has expanded its digital presence to reach out to audiences and has implemented other programs to interact with the local community. In this respect, some of the strategies created by the museum are: artists' talks known as "MARCO en casa" ("Marco at home") -presented as online video formats-, a weekly podcast with guests (artists, gallerists and curators) from the local art scene, "Tramas del arte" ("Art Webs") -a series of short audios where a critic, curator or art historian presents a specific topic (for example, "electronic arts", "pop art", etc.)-; and "Diccionario contemporáneo" ("Contemporary Dictionary"), a program of Facebook stories that define specific formats, disciplines or aspects of contemporary art (some of the definitions included "installation art", "land art", "performance"). Also, the museum has been included in guided visits to cultural spaces of La Boca provided by Meridiano, an association of contemporary museums used to (Carol Duncan mentions the temple or palace-like buildings like the Louvre or the British Museum) is combined with projects that expand its scope of action, like the programs aimed to connect with the neighborhood, with the community. In this sense, the walls itself change their meaning, since the MARCO affects its context both inside and outside their architectural limits. 1 Additionally, even though the image of contemporaneity created by this experimental museum is aligned with some global currents -some of the artists have developed relevant careers, especially in Argentina but also internationally-there's a de-centered, counter-hegemonic component both in the selection of artists and in the exhibition displays.
In terms of selection, the artists that participated in MARCO's exhibits are emerging young creators that live and work in some of the 23 provinces of Argentina. In the country, the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (which I practice acts as a province that is also the country's capital) has, historically, concentrated most of Argentina's artistic production: it contains the majority of galleries, museums and workshops, and most artists from the provinces travel to the city to make a name for themselves. 2 The city is, in fact, a mandatory stop for argentine artists who want to be relevant in the local circuit. Therefore, choosing and showing artists from other provinces implies permeating, partially, the hegemonic circuit. This inclusion of "provincial" art is often accompanied by a dialogue between them art galleries, and has produced video content regarding the neighborhood, its buildings, attractions and history. In terms of social interactions, the program "After" provides audiences with the possibility of combining drinks in the café with a guided visit through the museum, during the evening of each Friday. Finally, MARCO has developed "Ensayo para una obra futura" ("Rehersal for a future play"), an online series of theatrical experiments based on improvisation and coordinated by the theatre company La Bomba de Humo (The Smoke Bomb). Some videos of these experiences can be found in the following link: https://www.facebook.com/museomarcolaboca/videos/ ?ref=page_internal (06/13/2022). 2 An indicator of the relevance of the City of Buenos Aires in terms of art scene, finances, production, employment, etc. is that the rest of the provinces are referred to as "the interior of the country".

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and established artists, an agency that aims to incorporate the younger creators to a certain historiography, making their productions relevant within the field, adding value and importance to them.
In reference to the exhibition displays, although the gallery is mostly organized around the white cube -that is, the aseptic homogeneous display of most modern museums-it also adapts to a variety of projects and changes its organization to meet contemporary needs. Some of the shows included technological devices that require specific conditions (for instance, videos need a dark space) and others were site-specific (artworks thought and executed for a specific space that often need certain spatial conditions from the gallery as well). There were also experiences in which the gallery space wasn't imperative for the development of the show (like the in situ walkthroughs at the residents' workshops), and others were the museum left its walls for projects that involved the community (such as "Fantasmas en La Boca"). Finally, it is relevant to highlight that MARCO was created in the context of the "District of the Arts" project, a government-built plan to gentrify the southern areas of the city. La Boca is a neighborhood next to the Río de la Plata (the Silver River) characterized by its port and industrial activities and its proletarian -working-class: "Its precariousness and public services and infrastructure deficiencies (pavement, lighting, gas and water networks) and the abundance of rent homes made of corrugated sheet of metal, wood and iron known as conventillos are some distinctive features of the place" 1 (Thomasz, 2016, p. 153). The project of the "District of the Arts", developed in 2012, was thought to urbanize and improve these areas by providing tax exemptions and benefits to persons, foundations, business and companies that wanted to build cultural and artistic spaces. In a short amount of years, many commercial galleries moved or opened at 1 Translated from Spanish to English by Jonathan Feldman: "La precariedad y deficiencia de sus servicios públicos e infraestructura (pavimentación, iluminación, redes de gas, agua, y otras) y la abundancia de casas the district (for instance, P.O.P.A, Munar, Barro, Quadro, Constitución, Isla Flotante) to complement museums and foundations like PROA and Benito Quinquela Martín. Also, the city government built, in 2011, the "Usina del Arte" a few meters away from MARCO.
The inclusion of the contemporary art museum within the cultural scene of southern Buenos Aires can be seen as a strategy to elevate the city's image to that of global capitals of the world, where art and culture are seen as indicators of a country's development. However, this territorial insertion -including MARCO's expansive actions towards its surroundings and the La Boca community-can also be viewed as a relative rupture of hegemonic narratives, since it is a way to incorporate marginal, alternate, de-centered stories and representations to a contemporary art museum. In this sense, it complements the exhibition program, especially those projects where emerging art and its context of production (mainly, the residents' workshops and the dialogues with the collection). These are two actions that promote a different type of museum, that produce counterhegemonic agencies and disrupt, that can create a "… more experimental, less architecturally determined…" museum that offers "a more politicized engagement with our historical moment" (Bishop, 2013, p.6). Even though MARCO projects an image of contemporaneity somewhat global, it also provides exists, pores, where another kind of representation shyly appears: a space where, like Claire Bishop mentions, there's a dialectical contemporaneity, a methodological, political approach to art and its circuits. As such, through its experiments and expansion, MARCO positions itself as a true laboratory of contemporaneity.

CONCLUSIONS
The Museum of Contemporary Art of La Boca (MARCO), founded by Tres Pinos and opened in 2018, offers a program of de inquilinato de chapa acanalada, madera y hierro conocidas como conventillos, son algunos rasgos distintivos del lugar" (Thomasz 2016, p.153).  (Staniszewski, 2001). In the specific case of MARCO, that image of contemporaneity is based on accepted characteristics of contemporary art, such as its heterogeneity and multidisciplinary nature (Smith, 2006;Danto, 2009;Giunta, 2014), and yet there is also some permeability towards de-centered narratives.
The exhibition program defines a clear strategy with three types of shows: artists that participated in MARCO's residency program ("Arte Foco") showing their productions (made in situ at the workshops), emerging artists -most of whom received funding or where residents at Tres Pinos Foundation-in dialogue with established creators that belong to the collection; and mid-career and emerging artists invited to experiment with materials, ideas, ways of producing, etc. These strategies have the purpose of establishing an experimental institution and position it as a relevant agent within the local art scene.
In the case of artists in residence, MARCO provides a working space as well as a window to show their productions: the artworks are made on site and audiences can not only see what artists do, but also be a part of its making, affecting their production. In this sense, the strategy is not to glass-box creation, but rather to make it accessible, visible, for the public, to show the processes and the workers (Wylie, 2020). Thus, the experience is similar to a studio visit, where passersby can get involved in artistic production and build a conversation with artists, curators, museum professionals (such as educators), etc.; in other words, to function as an open laboratory (Meyer, 2011). As part of the efforts to expand the museum, MARCO organized activities such as the "Taller de Libro Bomba", a workshop for kids to manufacture their own books, and the cycle "Fantasmas en La Boca", which proposed visits to different sites of the neighborhood to discuss urban legends.
These two actions open up the walls of the institution to connect with the local community. They complement MARCO's place within the art scene of southern Buenos Aires and its bonds with other institutions, commercial galleries and cultural projects opened as part of the "District of the Arts" program. These actions describe an agency that aims to integrate a centered definition of contemporary art and its link to urban development with nonhegemonic narratives to make the museum a politicized space that looks at social issues and attempts to have effects in their community. To complement this objective, the artists selected to show at MARCO come from a variety of provinces and their artwork, their experiments, are heterogeneous in terms of materials, disciplines, concepts, ways of producing and, especially, narratives. The representations they build, the stories they tell have a de-centering effect on local art history and, at the same time, make the newer, more emerging artists part of that historiography. The dialogues between emerging and established creators are a way to shift narratives, to methodologically test the limits of the accepted and attempt a contemporaneity that's dialogical (Bishop, 2013), that contests hegemonic representation. To this respect, it is also relevant to mention display techniques at MARCO: even though, as mentioned before, the museum galleries are generally organized as "white cubes" (O'Doherty, 2011), the displays and curatorial formats adapt to different projects and artworks, permeating the aseptic, ideologically modern space. Moreover, the workshops -much like studios-are spaces where meaning is contested because of the audience's presence and the interaction between them and artists, curators, etc. In other words, the synchronicity of all these actors (and the passersby that can see the production process from the streets though the windows of the workshops) enhance the contingent nature of the space.

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All of these strategies, programs and actions make MARCO a true laboratory of contemporaneity, where art meets community to experiment with the representations, the images, of today and tomorrow. The museums of the future will have a strong digital and social presence and will meet the publics' demands of experimental, collaborative and inclusive art. Thus, they will contribute to expand accessibility, as well as promote new interdisciplinary formats and concepts, in the arts field. Institutions that aim to incorporate experimental and emerging art can offer alternative narratives and visualities by shifting the context/situation in which they present certain artworks. Some recommended actions include: 1-fostering intergenerational dialogues between artists; 2-facilitating exchanges with their publics by exhibiting the creative process and not glass-boxing or separating production instances or organizing visits to studios, workshops, conferences and talks to integrate art professionals with audiences; 3-re-organizing their digital presence to allow live and offline interaction as well as formative trajectories; 4-enabling artistic exploration of materials, disciplines, etc. by providing space and resources; 5-including creators from the so-called "peripheries" (understood in terms of global and local center-periphery relations); and, 6expanding their scope of action by creating projects specifically designed for a given community. Also, changing or updating exhibition designs will allow museums and other institutions to incorporate contemporary, interdisciplinary and dynamic art formats. Moreover, it will help build varied and diverse connections between artworks, artists and their contexts, and even modifying the understanding of social and historical phenomena.
As for our research, museum and curatorial studies are still fecund fields to explore, especially in Latin America. In the case of MARCO, there are still strategies to be found and implemented, some of them already in progress, which will be relevant and pertinent to analyze in the future. At a larger scale, we are interested in institutions, scenes, exhibitions and other curatorial dispositifs such as publications, festivals, fairs, digital projects, etc. that enable transformations in their production and circulation methods and formats. We aim to study the emerging and experimental art productions of the present and future from an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing on their ability to build imaginaries, representations and identities andespecially-on those experiences that make the creative processes visible, palpable, to publics and which include audiences in the behind-the-scenes.