Buenos Aires a graffiti artists paradise

May 28, 2011

A man walks in front of a mural painting on the walls of the Rivadavia hospital in Barrio Norte of Buenos Aires on April 28, 2011. The graffiti, an old technique used by many Argentines for reporting abuse of power on city walls, continues as an active political practice and has expanded to various street art expressions that are turning the city of Buenos Aires into an open air museum. AFP picBUENOS AIRES, May 28 A portrait of a murdered activist stares from the graffiti on the wall, a slogan makes a passer-by smile, a colourful pastiche turns visitors heads: welcome to the city where the walls talk.Buenos Aires has become a haven for street art, like Sao Paulo and Mexico City, said Fernando Aita, one of several young editors of the project Grafiti escritos en la calle or Graffiti street writings.His website, which encourages fans to look at the city through different eyes, has compiled 1,000 photographs of graffiti art dating back to 2009 in a remarkable visual and linguistic archive of modern times in Argentina.Plants do not bite, A present for our future and The fight continues are among the phrases that stop passers-by in their tracks, amid a flourishing collection of colourful frescoes.Its difficult to speak of graffiti as the citys heritage because they are ephemeral, but its true that street art is part of Buenos Aires, said Luis Grossman, who heads the citys historical centre.He supports the blossoming of graffiti which he says embellishes the city.But the scribblings are also a menace. The Cabildo colonial building, where an uprising on May 25, 1810, sparked a revolution, is constantly tagged. Authorities have spent huge sums repainting it, in vain.Graffiti Mundo, a local firm, is tapping into a touristic goldmine by organising guided tours of the citys best frescoes.Even tragedy finds a place among the writings on the wall.No more Cro-Magnon, wrote the parents of vic! tims who perished in a fire at the club of the same name in December 2004 that left 194 people dead.Another graffiti reads Caution: they are armed and at large, a reference to alleged police brutality, complete with a stencil of a policemans cap next to the warning.These walls can speak, providing a detailed account of how Argentine society has evolved over the past 10 years.In 2002, in the middle of Argentinas economic crisis, the graffiti was even more political, said Lelia Gandara, an expert in the study of signs and symbols at the University of Buenos Aires. People were expressing their anger and outrage.Aita explained that after those fury-filled times, more coloured frescoes began appearing. And now, hip-hop tags are prevalent.But political commentary regained a graffiti foothold after the death of former President Nestor Kirchner in October.He was featured on walls as the character Nestornauta, a reference to sci-fi comic El Eternauta, created by comic strip writer Hector Oesterheld, who was kidnapped and killed under the countrys 1976-1983 dictatorship with his three daughters.Mariano Ferreyra, a student killed in 2010 by union activists, is also a popular character in the graphics dotted across the city.Another popular figure is Julio Lopez, the first person to go missing after democracy was restored in Argentina. He was kidnapped in 2006 after testifying against policemen for crimes committed under the military dictatorship.Along Defensa Street, one of the oldest in the San Telmo neighbourhood home to many antique dealers, a cartoon cow, painted every 30 metres, asks: Who is thinking about us?Scenes of people dancing the tango follow further down the street.The streets used to be gloomy. Painting the walls brings a little bit of joy, said Jaz, a 29-year-old screenwriter who has had a passion for graffiti since he was a teenager. Its my way of making the city mine.Jaz acknowledged street painting is illegal, but the government and the police turn a blind eye as they have more important problems to deal ! with.Som etimes even homeowners give in to the trend and order custom frescoes, some more expensive than others, to decorate their walls.What a beautiful wall to paint! read one graffiti on a wall that had just been freshly whitewashed. AFP-Relaxnews