Alan Faena is credited with the transformation of the Puerto Madero district in Buenos Aires. In 2004 he opened the doors of the Faena Hotel, propelling one of Argentina’s most ambitious real-estate projects. Today, Puerto Madero has evolved into a vibrant satellite, while the hotel has established itself as a center for radical opulence, an all-white bistro with unicorn heads aligned on the walls and a floating golden crown on the pool distilling the Faena Universe.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the hotel's opening, legendary New York drag artist and DJ Lady Bunny held court on the decks, becoming the beehive-haired star of Latin American director Kayhan Ozmen's Kubrick-esque vision, soundtracked by Kourosh Yaghmaei's dreamlike "Niyayesh."
Faena’s wife Ximena Caminos is Director and Chief Curator of the adjacent Faena Art Center, and commissioned French-Brazilian artist duo Assume Vivid Astro Focus to take over the exhibition space with the site-specific roller disco installation Ángeles Veloces Arcanos Fugaces. The hotel’s Los Molinos room was reinvented as a psychedelic, soft-focus disco utopia; the shiny marble floor was transformed into a skate rink, fueling the prevailing myth that surrounds Alan’s parties.
In Alan’s suite the evening before, while Brazilian theater institution José Celso Martinez Corrêa improvised on the piano, Lady Bunny, with her monumental blond wig towering over Okwui Enwezor curator of Venice’s next biennial, posed for a picture next to the portrait of another prominent blond: Evita Perón.
Igor Ramírez García Peralta is Art Editor-at-Large at NOWNESS