The New Queen Bee

Barely a decade has passed since the urban arts scene in Buenos Aires really began to explode, and at the beginning of a new one the buzz continues to grow louder. Local businesses have long since picked up the trend, with a number arranging graffiti walking tours around the city, and documentary series like “Paredes que hablan” that offer intimate portraits of the city’s most prominent street artists to anyone with basic cable. International media stories and books published on the subject have also put Buenos Aires on the world map of the urban community.

This explosion of graffiti and street art in the public eye is a testament not only to the nature of the art itself, but to the growing number of arts organizations focused on this growing minority within the art world. One of those organizations is Honeycomb, a bi-city community of artists dedicated to cultural exchange and providing new venues for exhibiting young contemporary artwork. Inspired by the street art in Buenos Aires and the city as a whole, Honeycomb founder Trystan Bates set out in 2009 to create something unique. While certainly not the first startup group inspired by the urban art in the city, Bates has taken this initiative a few steps further both conceptually and geographically, producing creative spaces for social and environmental issues arising both in and outside of Buenos Aires.

Like Bates himself, Honeycomb is based in Buenos Aires and New York, but has members in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Honeycomb operates as part creative agency, part social organization, and part arts collective, functioning much like its namesake—a supporting structure that grows and develops through its many parts. Kicking off the year in Buenos Aires, Honeycomb’s first event takes place on January 15th at ThisIsNotAGallery in Palermo. Entitled 500 Con, the one-day pop-up exhibition will invite viewers to watch 21 urban artists creating posters on 500 sheets of paper that will cover theinterior space of the venue. The artists will be divided into two groups to create two collaborative murals for four hours. The murals will later be disassembled into individual works that can be purchased by the general public. A portion of the proceeds will go to Honeycomb’s charity partner, Wild Again, an environmental organization dedicated to buying land for the purpose of reforestation. Also present at the event will be Puro, the Argentine streetwear company, who will set up a station where artists will paint on sneakers. There will also be an acoustic concert with local band Recoveko and prize drawings throughout the day.

Coming up in 2011, Honeycomb has a two-month show based on the theme of rituals planned for New York, and another large exhibition planned for 2012 in London. Centering on the theme of war and peace, the exhibition will be produced in conjunction with Laura McNamara, a Birmingham-based artist agency and curator who works with street and contemporary artists. There is another large crossover event planned for Buenos Aires and New York in 2012 as well, but Bates wouldn’t reveal much about it right now, promising only that it would involve a large scale collaboration and that the group has “hopes for it changing the urban art scene” in Buenos Aires.

In the mean time, Honeycomb is always open to new ideas and projects, with events taking place as they come along. If you would like to know more about Honeycomb events, you can sign up on the contact page of their website. Bates adds that the group is always on the lookout for new artists to join the group, and if interested, they can send images to artwork@inthehoneycomb.com.