As the man at the epicentre of the 60s Pop movement, Andy Warhol shaped how we think about art now. Elevating the everyday into art, he blurred the lines between high and low culture. He created the model of the artist as media persona, mass producer and businessperson, a concept taken forward by contemporary art giants such as Damian Hirst, one of the most successful artists working today.

Buenos Aires is a city known for its garbage – the endless string of cartoneros picking through piles pitched onto the crumbling sidewalks every night, the trash-clogged storm drains flooding the streets during every heavy rain and sad reality that most recyclable materials are buried in landfills outside the city rather than reused.

Despite having shown his work in galleries around the world and sold paintings to giants like Donald Trump and the Clinton Foundation, Julio Chaile is curious. Graceful in appearance and demeanour, the 45-year-old Argentine artist views the world with a childlike sense of wonder. While asking a question, he tilts his head to the side as if attempting to peer inside your brain and examine your soul.

To call Florencia Troisi’s work stylistically consistent is an understatement. The overwhelming majority of the objects in her shop in Córdoba Capital feature the same expressionless female, her large, dark eyes staring out at the viewer. To hear the 32-year old artist tell it, the choice of her favored subject came about quite naturally.

The melancholic tango melodies and pounding candombe rhythms heard along the Río de la Plata emerged from an historical encounter of cultures: of European immigrants and African slaves. But while many would see the African influence in the region as something from the past, an exhibition at Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas reveals that a new voodoo-like religion is freshly adapting to Buenos Aires.

Using some of the biggest national icons as inspiration, including Che, Evita and ‘mate’, contemporary Argentine designers revel in their country’s unique identity. But this wasn’t always the case. As a consequence of a need to reinvent itself after the economic crisis of 2001, Argentine design experienced a revival, and it has been enjoying a strong creative resurgence ever since.

Pablo Bernasconi’s ingenious representations of people and animals, often constructing a body out of inanimate objects, have won various prizes worldwide. He designed more than 300 covers for the supplement of Argentine newspaper Clarín and illustrated five children’s books. ‘Retratos’, a book for adults, was published in 2008.

ArteBA, one of Latin America’s largest art fairs, which last year attracted over 120,000 people, opened its 18th edition to the sound of popping champagne corks on the 21st May. Walking around the Chandon sponsored opening it was difficult not to get distracted from the official exhibits, however. The immaculately coiffed guests and array of sculpted, surgeried faces among them seemed more immediately compelling than much of the art itself.

When I arrived in South America, I was quickly puzzled by certain hand movements the locals used. Misunderstandings about price, for example, were sometimes accompanied by a see-saw motion made with the thumb and index finger.

Upon entering Fundación Proa’s newly expanded and renovated gallery, everything transforms. As the glass door gently shuts on la Boca’s riotous colour, clashing tango scores and noxious river smells, a hushed, rarefied space opens up a different kind of spectacular experience.