There was a story here. Instead of static pictures of street art, or street art meeting its demise, I was going to show you street art in progress. I went out one beautiful weekend day, and found some graffiti hobbyists doing what they do. And I took a couple of pictures, and talked to them about the work they do, and where they have done it.
I couldn’t quite catch what the mural was going to be of, and here’s a picture I took before I got close to them.
Felipe, the guy whose face you can’t see, says he has a website where he posts pictures of his work, and that you can hire him to do murals. The other guy was a bit quiet. I think Felipe does their PR. I gave them my info to get in touch, but so far they haven’t, which does not surprise me.
And so in my mind, there was this story about process, about how something started gets finished, and there was going to be a picture of the completed mural, over there on the north side of the Alameda on Manuel Rodriguez, not far from Toesca. So I pedaled back one day with the specific goal of taking the after to my before, and found, instead, this.
“My” urban intervention (the graffiti) had been “intervened,” a sort of vandalism of vandalism, if you will, by a sign by the group chacon, who I now realize I know nothing about, despite them plastering my neighborhood with similar signs, this one anti-government (as most of them are).
And so the story didn’t go down the path I was expecting. It didn’t go from progress to finished, it went from progress to interrupted. And I was disappointed at first, because I’d figured out in my head where it should go, and this definitley wasn’t it. And then I had to resign myself and take another picture, because I always say I like my photographic subjects to just be, not to be hemmed in. And so it was.
And in other, unrelated graffiti news, I noticed this guy in my second visit to this wall, to the extreme right.
and it reminded me of this figure I snapped earlier this year in Laguna Zapallar.
And I love the way memory works, that you can see something that reminds you of something else, and now they’re two things together instead of one, alone, even though they’re separated by more than a hundred miles, and I have no way of knowing if the one from Laguna Zapallar is still there or might have been painted over or had a sign pasted on top.
Clickety click.
At first when I saw your title I was like "How dare someone deface your vandalism?" but it was actually pretty until someone put that odd political message through the middle. Oh Chile…
Looks like some serious "beef" to me! And to me the only vandalism here is the poster stuck to the art!
I really hate graffitis but I like mural paintings. Valparaíso is plenty of both of them (perdon si esta mal escrito esto, no se como se escribe).
In Camino Cintura of Cerro Cordillera (near the TAC: Taller de Acción Comunitaria) it was full of beautiful mural paintings about fishermen, the sea and things RELATED to that community (like this one http://www.fotolog.com/charquipunk/14953479), but now it were also scrawled over. I really don't get this. What's their benefit?
That's why I hate nonsense graffitis and your post made me feel REALLY HAPPY. Sorry, I hope not offend you.
Saludos
Panshipani makes a good point, about the difference between murals and street art vs. graffiti, which I've been calling sort of the same. Which they sort of are, but more often, they're not.
Thanks Panshipani for your comment, and I'm not offended at all!
And while maybe this wasn't the best example of murals painted in the city, I'm annoyed with Chacon for defacing it! Where's their socialist spirit? They usually plaster over series of posters all advertising the same thing (ooh, a new photo set, perhaps?).
Back to the streets, all. Thanks for commenting!
BTW- I just spotted another figure by "COALS" on Av Carmen this afternoon! Gets around, this one!
I wish everyone had as distinctive (and easy to find) tag! I'd start a new classification system, in addition to the one I have now, which would be appropriate to call descargar and dump.