Barcelona Travel Blog part six- Graffiti Tour

Our Street Art Tour was led by Bernardo, a 20-something year old from Mexico who has also lived in Paris. His girlfriend, Natalie, joined us on the tour. There was also a woman a little older than us on the tour. Another couple did not show up (we did wait about 10 minutes because it was a paid tour).

Bernardo has a Masters in Urban Design with a minor in street art. They live in the Ravel section of Barcelona. It was a very intimate two and a half hour tour (this time Don believed the tour would last until 7 pm).

We started with a history lesson, followed by seeing examples of famous street artists. 

The big reason urban art has taken off is because of changes in technology, including spray paint. After all, urban art has been around since the days of cave drawings. It took off in the 1960s in the era of the student movements that transformed Europe. It grew in the 1980s with the Hip Hop culture. Hip Hop started in New York and spread to Europe.

In 1989 Keith Haring came to Barcelona.

For the 1992 Olympics the city commissioned artists to fill specific blank walls. Montana Cans was founded that year, two years later they opened their first shop. This product offered artists a much wider color palette. 

From 1994-2005 there was a huge explosion of street art in Barcelona -- an era without rules! 

That was put to an end in 2005 when a 3,000 euro fine was placed on street art.

In 2012 this space was opened as a place to legally produce street art. There are rules. You have to reserve a space on an ap, but it can be done. The art you create might last a day, or three months. Typically the more creative works last longer. There are other rules, including you don't spray onto someone else's space (unless you are playing off their space). The square is located on Av. Parel-el and is called Parc de les Xemeneies. Without the spray paint, it would be a non-descript cement zone in front of three large smoke stacks. With the paint, it is transformed into a place where music is played and people hang out. On our second night, we saw people hanging out there. It wasn't our style of music, but it wasn't threatening, either.

Check out https://www.foreverbarcelona.com/street-art-in-barcelona-graffiti-artists-and-best-places-to-see-them/ to see a list of places to see street art. Parc de les Xemeneies is top on the list.

We crossed Av. Parel-el again to look at this "Gallery" of art.

Every other month two artists are chosen to paint the front. This time it is a collaboration between muralists Marra and Rubi (good chance I spelled the names wrong). On the sides are a mashup or artists, many who paste their artwork, or have friends paste their artwork when they travel. The pasted ones are easier to stick someplace and run -- after all, graffiti is illegal.

Our expert showed us work by Filthy Three from Italy (his work has three faces), Tiny Hands Big Hear (an Irish art teacher, and rare woman graffiti artist), Cold one, Silvano, and others.

Paste-up example

Filthy Three

Tiny Hands Big Heart

Ice Cream

Throughout the city are examples of cans like these stuck on sides of buildings. They began as a way for a couple to leave messages for each other and has taken on a life of its own.

The tiny masks seen throughout the city are by Amalisa. 

It is hard to see, but there is a new local artist whose art is the same color as the wall. Bernardo is quite dismayed that he cannot find the name of this artist, even though he has been asking his friends in the street art community.

A legal form of street art is painting the steel doors that close off businesses at night. Much of this type of work is quite impressive. Before the tour we saw Herbie the Love Bug on an auto repair shop. For this reason, it is best to go on a hunt for street art after the businesses are closed for the night. These works of art transform streetscapes. The rule is the walls belong to the public, but the doors belong to the business owner. Therefore, the doors can be decorated however the business owner would like it to be. A great space for extra advertizing.

Bernardo took us to a park his neighborhood that was supposed to become a hotel until the neighborhood put up a fight, now it is an empty space taken care of by the people who live in the area. They are not allowed to make any money off of this space, but they do have to take care of it. In this particular space is a Tim Marsh. Tim Marsh is a famous Barcelona street muralist. There is an app to find his work. Using you phone it becomes 3-D somehow. We did not have enough time to look into this. We did see a different one of his pieces towards the end of the tour. Our guide was dismayed someone recently painted over it -- that does happen with street art.

Around the corner is another such empty space. This one has been transformed into a place for social justice to honor a man killed by police brutality. 


 

We kept walking. Bernardo found us an example of Morky (?) who uses fire art. His canvas art style is much different from his street art.

As we walked through Raval Rambla, Bernardo told us about El Gato -- the giant cat sculpture we saw on our way to the tour!

The walk continued, and Bernardo quizzed us by effortlessly showing us origami ... a face ... more cans ... the stories are blurring. The attention span is waning.

Then he pointed to a paste up for a Labrador Retriever, which the artist hangs throughout the city to honor his deceased dog. The dog is always by a portrait by his friend.

The ubiquitous black pacifiers are by El Xupet Negre -- the oldest street artist in Barcelona. He has been painting for 34 years. His artwork sells in galleries. Once we knew what to look for, we kept seeing his work throughout our stay.

The most famous piece on our tour is actually a reproduction. In 1989 while in Barcelona famous American street artist Keith Haring was asked if he would do something for the city. He declined to do an interview, but instead created this piece of artwork in five hours in homage to the AIDS crisis (which would take his life a year later). It was created in the most dangerous part of town -- a place littered with needles and other drug paraphernalia. It was defaced and recreated a couple of times. Finally in February 2014 (on the 25th anniversary of the original) it was recreated near the Museum of Contemporary Art and meant to be permanent. Much care went into making sure it was an exact copy.

On one wall Bernardo points to a bunch of red dots -- they began as a way to say "look this artist has sold work in galleries," and show that street art can be legitimate.

We walked through a quiet courtyard to see the oldest piece of graffiti in
Barcelona - the initials HVGOT done as a prank upon graduating from college in the 17th century. Somehow it is survived.

As we keep walking and seeing artwork, it is turning into a giant blur. Maybe 2 hours would have been better than 2 1/2. Then we see something really cool: Teo Vazquez's Visibles series of art. He paints the usually invisible and makes them extremely visible. Teo Vazquez was hired to create this 9 meter by 2 meter tall paste up portrait of a random person holding up the balcony. The subject is smiling. It is so clearly "him," if we saw him on the street, we would recognize him as the one immortalized on the side of the church. The portrait was created during the pandemic.

Another Tim Marsh (the owl):

The tour was supposed to conclude with visiting two art galleries and a glass of wine or beer while we had the opportunity to talk to an artist. We went in the first studio. Bernardo pointed out some of the artists we had seen on the street who sell their works in the studio. After we left, he said the other studio is closed today because the gallery owner is an artist and decided today would be a good day to paint. So, no drink, and (perhaps more importantly) no bathroom break. 

Our guide and his love walking away arm in arm.

It was a great tour, but in the future I'll look for the free version first. I have found free tour guides more enthusiastic and engaged because they recognize their pay is based on how well the tour goes. Of course, then the groups tend to be larger. This was a very intimate tour. I often forgot there was an extra person with us. Natalie added to our group in that Don and Bernando were dashing with their long legs to the next place while I was talking pictures, making notes, and enjoying the scenery. Natalie made sure no one was left behind.