Chile for Art and Antiques

Chile.

Santiago de Chile is the capital city of the narrow and elongated southern country limiting with Argentina to the East, crossing the imponent Andes Mountains, and Peru and Bolivia to the North… to the West, the everlasting emerald colored Pacific Ocean.

This capital, very much alike Buenos Aires and Montevideo, is a cosmopolitan metropolis of crossed influences featuring a strong modern style at the time it blends the influence of millenary indigenous cultures. Under that first impression European feel, Santiago is very much part of Latin America in its culture, social standards and way of life.

The busy area of the Plaza de Armas, downtown Santiago featuring yuppies, working men and women in expensive designers’ suits, cellular talking people rushing from one place to the other, contrasts with Santiago’s most important marketplace: Bio Bio.

While first impressions are very important, we feel that in order to truly grasp the feel of Santiango one needs to go under the skin of those first impressions to find the substance of the being Chilean.

Following the route of marchants, dealers and collectors we tend to enter a world of amusing cultural contradictions where the old becomes antique, and a dirty warehouse becomes the place you’ve been dreaming on in your way up to Chile. Bio Bio is known as the Persian market of Santiago, for it shares the main concept of those Middle Eastern markets where you can buy and sell almost everything, where bargaining the prices is a must in order to establish a good negotiation and end up with the item you want, and also, where the local culture is more vivid and lively. At the Bio Bio market traditional local food and drinks blend together with original 18th century antique furniture, collectible china memorabilia of all kinds and brilliant antique toys. The sounds of modern Chile merge together with traditional string quartets at the time a passerby salesman offers you to follow him to the best stand of the fair.

Bio Bio is not tidy, it’s not neat, it’s not gringo suited tailored to portray a strange conception of the “authentic Chilean”. Bio Bio is authentically Chilean, messy, noisy, filled with new and interesting smells, chaotic and absolutely brilliant. It’s a place where locals and visitors who want more truly get in touch with the Chilean culture, and of course it is by far the best place to hunt down one of a kind collectibles and rare antiques.

The Persian, as locals refer to it, is located in the outskirts of Santiago, in what used to be the Slaughterhouse area, out of use for over three decades. Easily accessed by using the extraordinary Metro –subway- system, this market opens Saturdays at 10 AM.

Originally set back in the early 30s when the world was undergoing a terrible economical crisis, the Market was a way thru which most locals could find some extra cash by selling some of the family’s relics… back then the Franklin neighborhood where the Persian stands today was undergoing an era of splendorous work and profits, thanks to the input of Chilean leathers and meats to the World’s Market. But tables changed only three decades later when that particular industry dropped dramatically and went practically out of use. By 1979 the former Slaughterhouse neighborhood was abandoned, and the area began to change into a Persian neighborhood where not only the Market is the place perfectly suited to find extraordinary bargains, but also the surrounding houses, shops and warehouses.

The terrible economic crisis of 1982 was the final addition in this neighborhood’s transformation.

Today the market is constantly expanding around the area and the related shops from food and beverages to music and cultural shows make of this a must do activity when trying to discover the beauties and treasures of Santiago.

Bob Frassinetti, Buenos Aires, Argentina