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1. OPINION: BELGIUM’S MISGUIDED BOND CAMPAIGN (The Wall Street Journal Online)
2. ARGENTINA APPROVES BREAKUP OF TELECOM ITALIA’S LARGEST INVESTOR (Bloomberg News)
3. ARGENTINA’S SCP PLANS NEW YORK LISTING AFTER LEADING LOCAL GAINS (Bloomberg News)
4. THREE COMPANIES SAY DISCOVER OIL NORTH OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS (Reuters News)
5. ARGENTINA CLEARS BREAK-UP OF TELECOM ITALIA INVESTOR GROUP (Reuters News)
6. ARGENTINA PROBES SPORTS MEDIA BOSSES INDICTED IN FIFA SCANDAL (Reuters News)
7. ARGENTINA’S YPF, PETROLERA PAMPA EXPAND SHALE-GAS PARTNERSHIP (Fox News)
8. BRAZIL, ARGENTINA PROBE SOCCER INDUSTRY (The Wall Street Journal)
9. THE MISSING MAN IN THE FIFA INDICTMENTS (Fortune)
10. A BICONTINENTAL 1930S COUPLE AHEAD OF THEIR TIME (The New York Times)
11. WHY MALBEC IS STILL SO POPULAR ( Winemag.com)
1. OPINION: BELGIUM’S MISGUIDED BOND CAMPAIGN (The Wall Street Journal Online)
By Robert J. Shapiro
28 May 2015
A proposed law would encourage strategic defaults and let countries like Argentina run roughshod over bond investors.
Argentina’s 2001 sovereign default has sparked controversy and debate in many parts of the world for nearly 14 years. Even so, it’s surprising that the latest battle related to that event should play out in Belgium. Belgian lawmakers are debating a proposed law that, if adopted there and elsewhere, could cripple the market for sovereign bonds issued by developing countries.
The proposal, which could come up for a vote in the finance committee of the Belgian Parliament next week, would limit the amount a so-called vulture creditor could recover on sovereign bonds following a default. The bill would establish a vague definition of “vulture,” including whether there is an “obvious disproportion” between the purchase price paid for the bonds in the marketplace and the face value claimed in default proceedings—meaning whether the investor has bought bonds “too cheaply” relative to what she ultimately tries to recover. Other factors in the vulture designation would include whether the investor has a history of using courts to pursue claims or is “obstructing” a state’s attempt to repay its other debts.
The bill’s main provision declares that in any future sovereign default by a developing country, no vulture lender can collect more than it paid for its bonds. Any existing court judgments from outside Belgium in relation to the lenders’ collection of the debt would not be recognized in Belgium, undermining the international legal principle of comity.
This law would have limited, if any, effect outside of Belgium. But the proposal is inspired by a global backlash against investors who have tried to assert their legal rights in Argentina’s and other sovereign defaults, and the law’s Belgian sponsors say they hope it will “serve as a model for broader national and international legislative initiatives.” The danger is that they may right about that.
The central complaint of the bill’s proponents is that when a developing country defaults and offers a restructuring deal that a majority of creditors accept, a minority of lenders can hold up the deal by demanding a bigger payout. The case they cite is Argentina. Following its record-setting $81 billion default in 2001, the Argentine government offered a restructuring deal to its creditors in 2005 worth 27 cents on the dollar—dramatically less than the norm for such restructurings by countries much poorer than Argentina—and repeated the offer in 2010. By 2011, 93% of creditors had accepted. Argentina then attempted, unsuccessfully, to repudiate the defaulted bonds held by its remaining creditors. Despite losing repeatedly in courts, Argentina has refused to make any further effort to restructure the remaining bonds.
In addition to Argentina, Belgian lawmakers sometimes cite a case involving the Republic of Congo. But in the Congo case, Global Witness and other transparency groups cited the constructive role that Congo’s creditors played in exposing massive corruption by entrenched political elites. In Congo, creditors were simply enforcing contracts—and the case was settled. There’s no evidence that predatory postdefault negotiating by creditors is a problem for developing countries.
The Belgian proposal, if enacted in Belgium and more widely, would harm scores of developing countries. If governments are free to unilaterally ignore the terms of their debt contracts once they default, one likely consequence will be an increase in the number of strategic sovereign defaults. If these countries are further empowered to follow the example of rogue sovereigns such as Argentina in refusing to negotiate with creditors, investors will be less willing to buy any developing-economy sovereign debt, and will demand higher interest rates for any bonds they do buy.
Worse, tying the amount a creditor can be repaid to what he himself paid for a bond would freeze the secondary market for the debt of any developing country investors think might default. The high yields that result from falling prices relative to face values are necessary to compensate investors for the risk of buying bonds issued by stressed sovereigns. Without the possibility of achieving such a yield, the price for distressed bonds will effectively fall to zero in the absence of any demand. This only increases the interest rate that ordinary investors will demand to compensate for the higher risk they will have to bear, risk they could have otherwise offloaded to specialized investors in the event a country does come close to default.
Long-standing contract principles and rule-of-law are the solution for developing countries, not a problem to be legislated away. Belgian lawmakers and others need to think twice before upending the rules that have worked so well for so many.
Mr. Shapiro, a former U.S. under secretary of commerce for economic affairs (1998-2001), is co-chairman of American Task Force Argentina, a group whose members include bondholders contesting Argentina’s restructuring offer, and chairman of the economic advisory firm Sonecon.
2. ARGENTINA APPROVES BREAKUP OF TELECOM ITALIA’S LARGEST INVESTOR (Bloomberg News)
By Daniele Lepido
May 28, 2015
Telecom Italia SpA’s largest investor won approval from Argentina’s competition regulator to unravel an eight-year holding pact, clearing the way for Vivendi SA to take a stake in the Italian carrier.
Telco, which owns 22.4 percent of Telecom Italia, was set up in 2007 as the carrier sought to fend off a takeover bid from AT&T Inc. and Carlos Slim’s America Movil SAB. The green light from Argentine regulator CNDC is the final step that allows its investors, including Telefonica SA, to exercise their rights to sell.
“The demerger will materialize through the transfer to four new companies, each owned by Telco’s actual shareholders,” CNDC said in a document dated May 22.
Argentina’s regulator had a say in the ownership structure of Telco because of concerns about the domestic competition between Telefonica and Telecom Italia.
Telco shareholders Assicurazioni Generali SpA, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA and Mediobanca SpA may now sell their shares. Telefonica, the leading investor in the vehicle, will be replaced by Vivendi as part of deal last year when the Spanish carrier agreed to buy the French company’s Brazilian broadband unit GVT.
A Rome-based spokesman for Telecom Italia declined to comment on the Argentine decision. A Milan-based spokeswoman for Mediobanca also declined to comment.
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3. ARGENTINA’S SCP PLANS NEW YORK LISTING AFTER LEADING LOCAL GAINS (Bloomberg News)
By Camila Russo
May 28, 2015
Argentina’s Soc. Comercial del Plata SA plans to have its shares listed in New York after the holding company surged the most on the South America country’s benchmark stock index during the past year.
Buenos Aires-based SCP rallied as much as 14 percent to 3.3 pesos Thursday on speculation the company is planning to issue American depositary receipts in August. A company official who declined to be identified because the matter isn’t public confirmed plans to start trading shares in New York but said there was no set date.
The shares more than doubled in price during the past 12 months, the best performance on the Merval, the nation’s benchmark index. The company, which owns 30 percent of oil producer Cia. General de Combustibles, is also the cheapest on the index in terms of price-to-earnings ratio. Its revenue jumped 98 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier.
Energy assets account for 74 percent of its investments. Other holdings are in telecommunications and entertainment, according to its website. SCP President Ignacio Noel is scheduled to give a presentation at the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange at 6 p.m. local time.
SCP restructured 1.1 billion pesos ($119 million) of debt in January 2013 by offering to swap every 10 pesos of debt for one share with the same nominal value. The deal cut liabilities by 40 percent. The company defaulted on its bonds in 1999 and filed for protection in 2000.
Revenue jumped to 458.2 million pesos in the first quarter. Its price-to-earnings ratio of 1.53 compares with an average of 19.31 for companies on the Merval.
4. THREE COMPANIES SAY DISCOVER OIL NORTH OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS (Reuters News)
By Costas Pitas
May 28, 2015
Three oil companies said on Thursday they had discovered oil north of the Falklands, setting up potential further confrontation with Argentina which disputes British sovereignty over the islands.
Falkland Oil and Gas (FOGL), Premier Oil and Rockhopper said they had discovered oil in the Isobel Deep exploration well, in the North Falkland Basin, with more work due to be carried out.
“Further operations on the well will be performed,” said the FOGL Chief Executive Tim Bushell.
“These could include either a side-track from the existing well or a re-drill of the well near to the current location, depending on what is deemed appropriate once the drilling results have been further evaluated,” he said.
In April, Premier Oil and FOGL said they had made an oil and gas discovery at a well in the Falkland Islands, the first after nine months of drilling.
Later that month Argentina launched a lawsuit against the pair, Rockhopper and two further operators in a move which was denounced by Britain as bullying.
FOGL and Rockhopper resumed drilling at the Isobel Deep well this month following the repair of a blow-out prevent control system.
5. ARGENTINA CLEARS BREAK-UP OF TELECOM ITALIA INVESTOR GROUP (Reuters News)
By Juliana Castilla and Gianluca Semeraro
May 28, 2015
May 28 (Reuters) – Argentina has given a green light to the break-up of the Telco investor group owning 22.4 percent of Telecom Italia, paving the way for France’s Vivendi to become the biggest shareholder in the Italian phone group.
In a document dated May 22, which was seen by Reuters, the Argentinian antitrust watchdog CNDC cleared the break-up saying the move did not infringe competition law.
The four Telco investors, led by Spain’s Telefonica , decided to break up the vehicle last year but were waiting for regulatory clearance to press ahead.
French media group Vivendi obtained a 8.3 percent stake in Telecom Italia after agreeing to sell its Brazilian unit GVT to Telefonica in a deal which is expected to close this month.
Other investors in Telco are Italian financial companies Generali, Intesa and Mediobanca, which are now free to sell their stakes.
The Argentinian approval to the break up of Telco follows similar clearance in Brazil. Both were needed because Telecom Italia and Telefonica are competitors in the two Latin American markets.
6. ARGENTINA PROBES SPORTS MEDIA BOSSES INDICTED IN FIFA SCANDAL (Reuters News)
28 May 2015
BUENOS AIRES, May 28 (Reuters) – The Argentine government said on Thursday a judge was examining U.S. extradition requests for three businessman named in a corruption scandal engulfing world soccer, adding it would recover taxes on any illegal income earned by the trio.
The U.S. Justice Department alleges Alejandro Burzaco, Hugo Jinkis and his son Mariano Jinkis, all Argentine citizens, conspired to win and keep hold of lucrative media rights contracts from regional soccer federations in exchange for $110 million in bribes.
At least $40 million had been paid to date, the U.S. Justice Department’s indictment showed.
Burzaco is president of Argentine sports marketing firm Torneos y Competencias, while Hugo and Mariano Jinkis are controlling principals of Full Play, another sports media and marketing business headquartered in Argentina.
Cabinet Chief Anibal Fernandez said the extradition petitions had been received from the United States on Wednesday and handed straight to the Argentine law courts.
“An investigation is underway,” Fernandez told reporters at a daily briefing.
There were no immediate reports of arrests in the country.
On Wednesday Torneos strongly denied any involvement in corrupt schemes to win contracts.
“Torneos denies any involvement of the company and its president in the allegations,” Torneos said in a statement late on Wednesday. “It reaffirms its willingness to cooperate with the judicial authorities in order to shed light on the .”
Full Play did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment on the U.S. allegations. Attempts to reach the three indicted men through the companies were unsuccessful.
Worldwide, nine football officials and five sports media and promotion executives faced corruption charges, U.S. authorities said.
Pressure grew on FIFA President Sepp Blatter as the graft scandal rocking world soccer’s governing body deepened, with warnings from major sponsors and mounting criticism from Western leaders.
Torneos y Competencias, known better as Torneos, has long been a powerful force in sports media in the South American country.
Fernandez said Argentina’s tax authority would pursue any money owed to it.
“Illegal acts also pay taxes and in this case if it is proven that kickbacks were paid then they will have to pay an income tax of 35 percent,” Fernandez said.
7. ARGENTINA’S YPF, PETROLERA PAMPA EXPAND SHALE-GAS PARTNERSHIP (Fox News)
May 28, 2015
State-controlled energy company YPF said it has expanded its cooperation agreement with another Argentine crude and gas producer, Petrolera Pampa, with a view to developing the Rincon del Mangrullo shale-gas block in the southwestern province of Neuquen.
The accord, signed Wednesday, ensures the two companies will continue to develop the “tight-gas” project they launched in early 2014.
A total of 49 wells had been drilled in that area through the end of the first quarter of this year, yielding average daily gas production of 1.4 million cubic meters (49 million cubic feet), YPF said in a statement.
This new agreement calls for additional investment totaling $150 million for surface infrastructure development, with each company accounting for a 50 percent share.
These projects, highlighted by the planned construction of a new treatment plant and pipelines, will double gas-treatment capacity and enable the companies to boost daily production to 4 million cubic meters (140 million cubic feet).
Petrolera Pampa also pledged to invest $22.5 million to launch the third phase of new well drilling, a project aimed at increasing tight-gas production at the block.
“Once that phase is completed, both companies will be able to continue” developing the block and dividing up the investment cost equally, the statement read.
Tight gas is developed using a controversial method known as fracking, which involves pumping a pressurized fluid – usually composed of water, sand and chemicals – into a shale formation to create a fracture in the rock layer.
The agreement also encompasses an up to $40 million exploratory program in the nearby Lajas Formation for the 2015-2016 period, with Pampa Energia, the parent company of Petrolera Pampa, accounting for 85 percent of the total investment outlay.
The expanded cooperation accord calls for YPF and Petrolera Pampa to invest $350 million this year, the state-controlled energy company, Argentina’s largest hydrocarbons producer, said.
8. BRAZIL, ARGENTINA PROBE SOCCER INDUSTRY (The Wall Street Journal)
By Rogerio Jelmayer and Luciana Magalhaes
May 28, 2015
Two of the world’s major soccer powers began probes against local executives in tandem with the U.S.-led bribery case.
SÃO PAULO—Brazil and Argentina, two of the world’s major soccer powers, initiated probes against local executives in tandem with the U.S.-led bribery case that has targeted international soccer organizations and shaken the sports world.
In Brazil, police and prosecutors raided the offices of a sports-marketing firm owned by a prominent local businessman, as officials said they were cooperating with their U.S. counterparts in the sweeping probe.
The U.S. investigation, in cooperation with Switzerland, led to the arrests on Wednesday of 13 current and former officials from FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, and others connected with Latin American and Caribbean soccer organizations, as well as one from the U.S.
In Argentina, the country’s tax agency filed a criminal complaint against three Argentine businessmen indicted by the Justice Department, accusing them of tax evasion, money laundering and conspiracy to commit a crime. The men weren’t available to comment but a lawyer for two of them said he would defend them against any extradition request.
Argentina’s tax agency also said it tried to get FIFA’s help to investigate allegations that foreign clubs have used tax havens to avoid paying taxes on the sale and transfer of Argentine players. The agency said that it told FIFA President Sepp Blatter in an April letter that the organization wasn’t helpful and that it was delaying efforts to make the sport more transparent.
“FIFA never collaborated with fiscal transparency in soccer,” the tax agency said on Thursday.
FIFA didn’t respond to the allegations.
The Brazilian company, Klefer Marketing Esportivo, which was raided in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday night, is owned by Kleber Leite, the former president of popular Rio-based soccer club Clube de Regatas do Flamengo.
Mr. Leite, who wasn’t named in the U.S. indictment, said he was under investigation in connection with a past agreement between him and José Hawilla, a Brazilian national who was listed as a co-conspirator in the U.S. indictment.
Mr. Leite denied any wrongdoing and said he was cooperating with investigators. He didn’t provide details of his company’s work with Mr. Hawilla’s company, Traffic Group.
Mr. Hawilla is cooperating with the FBI in its investigation, his lawyer said on Wednesday. Under an accord with U.S. authorities, Mr. Hawilla has admitted to crimes including money laundering, fraud, extortion, and agreed to return $151 million.
U.S. prosecutors indicted the 14 people on charges ranging from racketeering to money-laundering and wire fraud. U.S. prosecutors allege that senior officials of organizations including FIFA and the Brazilian Confederation of Football received more than $150 million in bribes and kickbacks over years in connection with the sale of TV and marketing rights to soccer games and regional tournaments.
U.S. prosecutors, in their indictment, allege that Traffic Group executives bribed officials at FIFA and Concacaf, the soccer federation for North and Central America and the Caribbean region, to win contracts to sell marketing rights.
The political fallout from the indictment was swift in Brazil.
A group of Brazilian politicians, including former soccer star and current Sen. Romario Faria, approved an investigation into the country’s soccer industry, which he said would “shake Brazilian soccer.” Another Brazilian legislator, Sen. Alvaro Dias, called for Brazilian sporting federations to be audited by the country’s fiscal watchdog, the Federal Court of Accounts.
Justice Minister José Eduardo Cardozo said Brazil’s Federal Police were opening an investigation into allegations contained in the U.S. indictment.
“We can only investigate actions that are crimes under Brazilian legislation,” Mr. Cardozo said. “If there were any, and there probably were, Brazil’s Federal Police will investigate vigorously.”
The Brazilian Confederation of Football’s former president, José Maria Marin, was among the officials arrested Wednesday. Mr. Marin stepped down last month but was still a vice president of the organization until Wednesday, when the confederation stripped him of that title.
The confederation’s headquarters in Rio de Janeiro were named after Mr. Marin, but the group had his name removed from the facade early Thursday.
—Taos Turner in Buenos Aires contributed to this article.
9. THE MISSING MAN IN THE FIFA INDICTMENTS (Fortune)
By Ian Mount
May 28, 2015
The late Julio Grondona exerted direct control over the television rights at the center of Wednesday’s indictments.
In Wednesday’s blockbuster indictment of FIFA officials and sports marketing executives, there was one name glaringly unmentioned.
No, it was not Sepp Blatter. It was Julio Grondona.
As the longtime head of Argentina’s soccer federation, the AFA, Grondona served as FIFA’s senior vice president—Blatter’s No. 2– until his death in July 2014 at the age of 82. A member of FIFA’s executive committee from 1988 to his death and a former chair of the organization’s finance committee, Grondona was a long-time confidant of Blatter.
He also exerted direct control over the television rights at the center of Wednesday’s indictments. “He’s the great missing man because, basically, he was the one who managed all the television contracts at FIFA while he was alive,” said Hernán Castillo, an Argentine sports journalist and the author of Todo Pasa, an unauthorized biography of Grondona’s life at the nexus of soccer, business, and politics.
Known as “Don Julio,” Grondona cut a fearsome figure in the Argentine political landscape. Appointed to head the AFA in 1979 by Vice Admiral Carlos Lacoste, one of the leaders of the military junta that ruled Argentina during the Dirty War (1976 to 1983) that left up to 30,000 people disappeared or dead, he was the last major figure from that period still in power.
Grondona was known as a survivor, someone who could get along with military rulers as well as civilian governments of both the right and the left. He also controlled the Argentine league’s finances and TV contracts with an iron fist. That put him in close contact with three of those indicted on Wednesday for allegedly having “systematically paid and agreed to pay well over $150 million in bribes and kickbacks to obtain lucrative media and marketing rights to international soccer tournaments.”
Those three were Alejandro Burzaco, the head of Torneos y Competencias, an Argentine sports marketing business that had the rights to many Argentine league and national team games; and Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, who ran Full Play Group, an Argentine sports marketing business that holds the TV rights for several South American national teams and tournaments.
“All TV business with whatever businessperson passed through Grondona’s hands,” said Castillo.
Grondona’s relationship with Burzaco had a rocky start. In 2009, the Argentine government took the local pay-TV rights for the Argentine league away from Torneos y Competencias and gave them to Grondona and the AFA to start a government-subsidized free TV broadcast scheme called Fútbol Para Todos (Soccer for Everyone).
But soon the two built a working relationship, and Burzaco’s company provided production services to Fútbol Para Todos and held the international rights for the games. As of the beginning of this year, the company also held the production rights to friendly games for the Argentine national team.
Grondona’s funeral services were attended by Sepp Blatter, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi. Also present was Eugenio Figueredo, a current FIFA vice president and executive committee member and former CONMEBOL president, who was indicted on Wednesday.
Presumably in jest, the Venezuela-based television network TeleSUR briefly illustrated a story about Grondona’s sendoff with a funeral scene image from The Godfather.
Grondona managed to avoid lasting corruption indictments during his lifetime, but he may very well have known that something untoward was going on in the selection of Russia and Qatar as hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Commenting from New Zealand on Wednesday, where he is coaching Argentina’s under-20 soccer World Cup, Grondona’s son, Humberto, said of the indictments, “I’m not surprised. From what I spoke about at the time with my father, we knew of certain irregularities that had happened with the elections in the cities for the World Cup.”
It’s impossible to know how Grondona would have reacted to Wednesday’s news. He was known to wear a pinkie ring with the words “todo pasa” inscribed. The translation: “everything passes.”
10. A BICONTINENTAL 1930S COUPLE AHEAD OF THEIR TIME (The New York Times)
By Martha Schwendener
29 May 2015
Divided into alternating his-and-hers rooms and zigzagging across the Western Hemisphere, it’s hard to tell at first if ”From Bauhaus to Buenos Aires: Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola” at the Museum of Modern Art is about an artistic couple, 20th-century migration or European modernism and its diaspora. In many ways, it’s about all of these. But despite more than 300 somber, high-contrast vintage black-and-white photographs, films and display cases of ephemera organized in neat rows, the exhibition is a bit of a hot mess.
It starts with photographs of Buenos Aires by the Argentine artist and filmmaker Horacio Coppola (1906-2012) and then turns to advertising work and portraits made in Germany by Grete Stern (1904-99), a photographer who became Coppola’s wife. But wait: Doesn’t the show’s title suggest a trajectory moving from the Bauhaus to Buenos Aires?
What becomes clear — as much as possible, since the information is buried deep in a handful of wall labels and mostly in the catalog — is that these were fellow travelers and photographers, rarely collaborators. Stern was clearly more of a visual arts innovator, but Coppola provided the connections and the place to land during the turbulent ’30s and ’40s. The catalog provides enough evidence to draw your own conclusions: Stern is featured in an essay and reproductions up front; Coppola, in a separate essay at the back of the book.
Stern was born in 1904 in Elberfeld, Germany, and studied drawing and graphic design in Stuttgart before moving in 1927 to Berlin, which was undergoing a photographic revolution. Under the advice of her brother, Stern took private photography lessons with Walter Peterhans, who later became the director of photography at the Bauhaus. Her most significant output in Germany was with Ringl & Pit, the advertising agency she founded with Ellen Auerbach in 1930. The Ringl & Pit work here combines art and advertising in the best Bauhaus tradition: innovative typography and layouts and photographs of products that look like modernist still lifes. After the rise of the Nazis, however, Stern and Auerbach were forced to sell their business, three years after its opening.
In Buenos Aires, Coppola started taking photographs around 1927 and going for long walks (starting in 1929) with none other than Jorge Luis Borges, later Argentina’s best-known writer, who included two of Coppola’s photographs in a 1930 book. Much of Coppola’s work in this show consists of cityscapes and street views, either of Buenos Aires or European cities, which resemble at different moments the work of Eugène Atget or American modernists like Walker Evans or Paul Strand.
Coppola went to Europe for the first time in 1930; in 1932, he returned and studied at the Bauhaus in Berlin — and met Stern. His photographs changed. He became more technically proficient and started incorporating oblique angles and aerial views, like the Russian Constructivists or Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. His Bauhaus studies depicting eggs, feathers or twine are interesting, if not revolutionary.
In 1935, the couple married and moved to Buenos Aires, where they entered (or for Coppola, re-entered) a world of artists and intelligentsia. Stern made portraits of their friends and acquaintances, including Borges and the poet Pablo Neruda, when he visited town in 1945. Very little information about Stern’s sitters is included in the exhibition, which is disappointing since some of them were involved in the international anti-Fascist movement or early versions of feminism, like the playwright Amparo Alvajar and the abstract painter Manuel Ángeles Ortiz, whom Stern photographed in 1943 after his internment in a concentration camp during the Spanish Civil War.
She also photographed members of Madí (from the first two letters of the words ”materialismo dialéctico”), who were committed to abstraction as an antidote to the propaganda disseminated by Juan Perón. One of Ms. Stern’s best-known works, on view here, is the ”Photomontage for Madí, Ramos Mejia, Argentina” (1946-47), which she made for the second issue of their journal. For the images, she used the ”M” from a neon sign advertising Movado watches and superimposed ”Madí” over the obelisk designed by Alberto Prebisch to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Buenos Aires. The obelisk symbolized, for her milieu, abstract geometry.
Stern and Coppola divorced in 1943, and the exhibition ends with work from the late ’40s and early ’50s. One of the best rooms in the show features ”Dreams (Sueños),” the surrealist photomontages that Stern published in a women’s magazine from 1948 to 1951 to illustrate a column on psychoanalysis. Campy, vivid and weird, the montaged images often featured the couple’s daughter, Silvia Coppola, and demonstrated the popular fascination with psychoanalysis in Argentina during that period, but also the fears surrounding repression by the Perón dictatorship. Others are vaguely feminist, like ”Dream No. 1: Electrical Appliances for the Home” (1949), in which a woman serves as the base of a lamp, with a man’s hand reaching around to switch her on — or off.
The catalog contends that Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola created a stunning body of work, but the show argues, in many ways, for two discrete bodies of work. What might have been accomplished instead of trying to insert two lesser known figures into the canon is to highlight what’s really interesting about their lives and careers: that they — and particularly Stern — were migratory and interdisciplinary, harbingers of the kinds of artistic practice we see today in which commerce, parenthood and politics can no longer be elided, and so they become part of the work. The museum could have showcased their work along with that of their friends and compatriots, from Bauhaus to Buenos Aires, from the literary world to the poets, writers, activists and psychoanalysts with whom they interacted and not just as mute players in this narrative. Now that would have been an extraordinary show.
11. WHY MALBEC IS STILL SO POPULAR ( Winemag.com)
By Michael Schachner
June 2015
Michael Schachner explores why supply and demand for Argentina’s signature grape rages on, despite that sales may be declining.
There’s a high-end wine shop in my Manhattan neighborhood called Burgundy Wine Company. As the name implies, this store traffics almost exclusively fine French cuvées—Burgundies, Rhône wines, Beaujolais, etc.
So imagine my surprise the last time I popped in to buy a couple of bottles of Gigondas and Chiroubles: Alone in the corner, but conspicuous as a flying pig, was a floor-stacked display of Enrique Foster Malbec from Argentina, the country most closely associated with this Bordeaux variety.
“What is that?” I asked my sales guy. “Why are you selling Malbec from Argentina in a place like this?”
“That’s for all the people who come in off the street, not knowing who we are or what we specialize in, and want Argentinean Malbec,” he answered. “Happens all the time; probably three or four times a day. If that many people want something, we’d be stupid not to offer it.”
And I thought Malbec’s popularity, which began blowing through the roof in this country starting about 10 years ago, was waning. At least that’s what the numbers say.
According to Wines of Argentina, a trade association that represents the country’s wine industry, from 2005 through 2010, shipments of Malbec to the U.S. increased by no less than 31% in any given year, with some years showing jumps of more than 40%, and 2008 seeing a leap of 61% over 2007.
But in recent years, the Malbec machine has slowed. In 2012, the increase in Malbec shipments from Argentina to the States was 2.8% over the prior year; in 2013 it was 4.1%. And last year, the quantity of Malbec that Argentina sent us actually fell by about 4%.
Meanwhile, a New York retailer of French wines is stocking Malbec in order to meet everyday demand, and rarely have I attended a party or event lately where Malbec wasn’t being poured.
The point I’m making is that numbers can be misleading. Yes, the Malbec movement may be losing some of its steam as the thrill of discovery gives way to widespread acceptance. But Malbec still ranks as one of the most popular varietal red wines out there. As Mark Twain once said about rumors of his own premature demise: Any assertions that Malbec is headed for the same grim fate as Merlot appear to be “greatly exaggerated.”
Following are five recommended Malbecs tasted and reviewed this year. Three are from Argentina, while the others hail from Chile and Cahors, France’s Malbec hotbed. For full tasting notes on each wine, including tips for when to drink them, check the Wine Enthusiast Buying Guide.
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THURSDAY
1. ARGENTINA’S SCIOLI IN FIGHT WITH FERNANDEZ LOYALIST RANDAZZO (Bloomberg News)
2. NEXT ARGENTINE PRESIDENT READY TO FIX ECONOMY, QUICKLY OR SLOWLY (Bloomberg News)
3. ARGENTINA ECONOMY: QUICK VIEW – TRAIN NETWORK NATIONALISED (Economist Intelligence Unit – ViewsWire)
4. ARGENTINE ECONOMIC ACTIVITY GROWS DURING BUMPER SOY HARVEST (Reuters News)
5. STRIKING GRAINS CRUSHERS SAY ARGENTINE GOVERNMENT NIXES PAY DEAL (Reuters News)
6. ENVIRONMENT: SC