Adriana Lestido: Metropolis

Evocatively somber images of a bygone Buenos Aires

This volume gathers black-and-white pictures of Buenos Aires taken by the celebrated Argentine photographer Adriana Lestido (born 1955) between 1988 and 1999. Her photographs chronicle the expansion of the city, documenting neighborhoods such as Constitucion, La Boca, Villa Lugano, Pompella and a today-unrecognizable Puerto Madero. A total of 53 images, originally taken for a weekly column in the newspaper Pagina/12, are included here. The inspiration for this book came in 2018 when filmmaker Fernando Spiner asked Lestido for permission to use photographs that had not appeared in any books or exhibitions for a film taking place in early-'90s Buenos Aires. From street dogs to protests to workers on their daily commutes, Lestido's photography paints a poignant portrait of a socially fragmented Buenos Aires with anonymous and solitary figures who wander, work or live in the big city.