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Visit to the Xul Solar Museum

Marcos Rodríguez

A visit to this museum turns out to be as complex and fascinating as the work and thought of Argentinian artist Xul Solar.

Few times has a museum space been so much in tune with the material it displays as Xul Solar Museum. Going up its stairs and strolling around its rooms can almost be compared to entering one of its paintings.

While walking down the streets of Palermo, an absent-minded pedestrian might get past this museum without even noticing it. The façade of the building once dwelled by Alejandro Xul Solar at 1212, Laprida Street has been preserved intact ever since the days he lived there and only a sign and a large glass door give evidence of the fact that there is something else inside.

But upon entering the venue, it is understood that it follows an eccentric kind of logic. This is not a house. It is not the continuation of the street. It is something else. The carefully selected music and lights stress that effect.

A New Space

The refurbishing works carried out in this hundred-year-old building in order to condition it as the Pan Klub and Xul Solar Museum venue in the 1990s followed the lines Xul Solar himself had laid out in his architectural visions painted in watercolors.

Thus, this institution dedicated to preserving and spreading the memory and very plentiful and multifaceted work of the well-known Argentinian artist presents a permanent show including the collection Xul Solar himself had selected for his Pan Klub project.

As well, we found several objects created and owned by the artist, such as a modified piano that was adjusted to a new music notation, a pan chess game, books, masks and other elements.

The spaces, staircases and cities in this museum are multiplied with every frame. The multiple cabalistic, astrological, magical and mystic visions of Xul Solar seem to encourage us to go beyond.

Trying to enter the meanings of his paintings, of his pan tongue, of his games is equal and impossible at the same time. The crossing of images, signs, numbers and symbols provides guidance through Xul Solar’s constant path towards superior knowledge, which he considered could bring us a utopia.

Today, pan language (a language he himself created so that all nations could communicate), Neo-Creole (another tongue created by Xul Solar, a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese, so that Latin America may be united in a sole language), his games with I Ching, the astrological reinterpretations, the mystic messages may seem to go beyond ourselves and be confusing. In some other time, they were avant-garde. They may still be a vision of a better future, if we chose to see it.

The Xul Solar Museum seems a brief proof that it is still possible.