Valparaiso Graffiti:
From vandalism to public art gallery
By: Thomas Joa
Photos: Hanna Curlette
In New York City, spray painting a mural on the side of a building is considered vandalism. If the same mural is painted on a building in Valparaiso, Chile, it is considered art.
Travelers visiting central Chile may stop by Valparaiso, the 2nd largest city in Chile and one of the largest shipping ports in South America. Known for its colorful houses, funiculars and staircases, Valparaiso, or Valpo as it is commonly referred to by locals is also known for the colorful street art that literally lines the majority of the buildings throughout the city. What visitors may not know is that each piece of art is reflective of the culture of the artist who painted it.
The street art, called graffiti, began as a form of protest during the regime of Augusto Pinochet during the 1970’s. After the dictatorship collapsed in the late 1980’s, the graffiti became a way for the artists of Chile to express themselves.
Artists from all over the world come to Valparaiso to do graffiti. This mural one theside of the Hostel Acuarela, was done by two artists to pay for their rooms during Polanco Graf festival in 2012.
Valparaiso quickly became a hub for graffiti when city officials made it acceptable to do graffiti on a building as long as the artist has the owner’s permission. Artists often get permission to paint from the home and shop owners in their neighborhoods. Sometimes, an artist does a job on commission, which means that a property owner pays the artist to create a piece for their building.
There are three stages of graffiti; the tag, the bomb and the mural. The tag is the first stage and is just a simple painting that can be done in a matter of seconds. The tag is considered the artist’s signature and is often the name that the artist makes for his or herself in the street. The bomb is the second stage and is often just the artists tag name but much larger and significantly more detailed. The third stage is called the mural and are often the largest and most detail oriented pieces.
This is an example of the tags that can be found across Valparaiso. Tags are considered to be the worst part of graffiti but many street artists acknowledge their importance in shaping the street art seen today.
Diego Bustos, a tour guide for Valpo Street Art Tours, says that residents of Valparaiso do not like the tags because they are visually unappealing. He says that the murals are the preferred form of graffiti because of the scenes they depict and the detail involved.
Bustos says that one artist, Milan is very popular because he paints art that is very symbolic of his home region of Chiloe, Chile. Many of his murals depict images with fish, symbolic of Chiloe’s fishing industry, and holes in blood, which symbolize Chiloe’s strong ties to religion.
Bustos says there is a very thin line between the tags and the murals and while he understands why people do not like the tags, they are very important to the history of graffiti in the city.
“A lot of people who see this [The mural] say this is nice, I like this. Then they turn around and see this [The tag] and say I hate this, I don’t like this. But this is also graffiti,” Bustos says. “They think Milan is a good street artist so he is not doing this. Most of the artist are still doing this [mural] and this [tag]. And why is because most of the street artists started doing tags, then bombs, then murals.”
This mural painted by Chilean street artist Milan depicts themes important to his hometown of Chiloe. The fish are symbolic of the fishing industry the region in known for and the hole in the blood are symbolic of sacrifice.
Bustos is just one of the many people who understand the importance of the tag in the history or graffiti. Christopher Roche, another guide for Valpo Street Art Tours also says he believes that the tag is very important to the history of Graffiti.
“The tag is the first type of expression on a wall,” Roche says. “After the tag was done, people started to try new techniques, started to do bigger letters, do some characters and then what we can see today in the streets. It’s the beginning of everything; even the most recognized graffiti writer started with a tag.”
Roche says as the people of the city have evolved over time, so too has the graffiti. He says that over the last few decades, appreciation for graffiti has grown in Valparaiso and is now recognized as an art form across all generations. According to Roche, this is very much a reflection of the culture of the city.
“Valparaiso is very well known for being a city that is very rich in culture, not only in art but also for musicians, poets, people who work with handcraft and many other kinds of artists,” Roche says. “What helps a lot for the new generations is to show them how to express themselves however they want and like this many graffiti writers are born, ” Roche says.
Roche is a graffiti artist himself, and says he began when he was 15 years old. Roche says that he began tagging with a friend from school and has continued to graffiti since. Roche says that he likes to work with words and paint Chilean phrases and slang. Roche says that he does not currently have a tag name. He says he enjoys painting what comes to mind and likes to improvise once he gets to the wall and starts working.
While improvising works for some artists, others spend time planning out their pieces. This can be a difficult process because it is hard to really get the scale and perspective until after you have started painting on the surface of a wall.
Bustos says that a lot of the major artists in the city have spent years perfecting their craft. According to Bustos, many of the artists start early in their teens and some even younger. Bustos says that the “We are not Hippies we are Happies” wall was done by children between the ages of 8-12.
Bustos says that a lot of kids get into graffiti through their friends and as a result of this, there are crews, groups of people who paint together, all over the city. One of the most famous crews in Valparaiso is Unkolor Distinto. Unkolor Distinto is made up of couple Jekse (Sammy) and Cines (Cynthia) from Santiago who now live and work in Valparaiso. They are stand out because in their murals, Jekse always paints the male and Cines always paints the female.
This piece was a collaboration between two crews, Unkolor Distinto and Wakala Crew.Unkolor Distinto is one of the most prominent crews in Valparaiso
Collaboration is a common part of graffiti in the city and it helps artists mix different styles and techniques as well as allows them to create bigger pieces. Bustos says that a piece, located on Cerro Concepcion and done as a collaboration between Unkolor Distinto and Wakala Crew (Toto and Setok), is one of his favorite pieces. He says that he got to see them working on it and that it took a relatively short time to finish the piece.
“One day I showed up and they were doing this and that was at 11 am,” Bustos says. “I came back at 4 or 5 pm, and they were finished.”
With practice, the artists are able to paint the big murals in just a few hours. Bustos says that the artist artists will often take pictures of an area and then go back and draw their design and how it will fit on a wall. He says that while they are painting, artist will often times step back and get a look at their art in order to keep perspective and scale. Bustos says that people are surprised to learn that most of the pieces do not take more than a day to do. Murals are extremely detailed and the short amount of time it takes to paint the pieces is a testament to the skill of the artists.
This piece, found near the top of Cerro Concepcion is an example of how artist useperspective to help their work stay in proper scale.
While the pieces themselves do not take long, the art form has taken years to grow into what it is today. According to Roche people used to think that the graffiti was all vandalism, no matter how beautiful it was. He says the opinion in Valparaiso has changed only recently.
“The typical perception that people had about graffiti was something that was just filthy,” Roche says. “Now people call artists to paint their houses, or to paint their shop, or their restaurant. There are many shops and restaurants that include street art to just represent they are part of the culture.”
Roche says this change has come through the resolve of the artists to perfect their work. Roche says that now people see the murals as something friendly and that people will stop to take pictures of artists at work and tell them that their work is beautiful. He says that the culture of graffiti in the city has changed over the last decade and that now it is starting to change in places around the world.
Roche says one artist who is responsible for this change in culture is Chilean Muralist Inti. Inti is a native of Valparaiso and started doing graffiti when he was 15 years old. He now has murals in cities worldwide including, Paris, France, Oslo, Norway, Lodz, Poland and more
Pablo Martinez, a native of Montevideo, Uruguay says he feels that Inti is a major reason why street art is starting to spread to his home country.
This giant mural was done by Valparaiso native Inti. Inti’s work is inspired by pre-Columbian and Andean culture and his murals can be found in cities all over the world.
“He is doing Murals …everywhere and people are starting to see graffiti as art and not vandalism,” Martinez says. “Murals are starting to be considered a piece of art on a wall.”
Martinez says that he hopes that graffiti will become bigger in Uruguay over the next few years but understands that it will take time since it is such a small country. He says that he thinks that street art festivals and the changing perception of graffiti as professional art will help it spread to other cities and countries.
Roche says that he also thinks graffiti will continue to grow over the next few years.
“I would say that graffiti would keep turning bigger year by year and it’s not going to stop any time soon,” Roche says “Today, people can live off just graffiti so in some years this will turn into a real job. It is going to be included in the history of art, so it’s going to be taught in art schools as a subject. This type of expression is something unique today.”
There are many different style that artist use when doing their murals. This muraldone by Martin Ron, Rikis and Painter uses the technique of hyper realism.
Martinez says this form of expression is unique and is especially so to the city of Valparaiso. Martinez says that when he thinks of murals in Chile, he thinks of Valparaiso. Graffiti artists from around the globe come to leave their mark on the Valparaiso and some of the world’s most prominent artists call the city home.
Roche says Valparaiso has set an example for how other cities can use graffiti to bring art to their streets and how it can have a positive impact on their culture.
“Just be open with this kind of expression,” Roche said. “Make some festivals, some exhibitions with national or international artists, leave some areas open to paint some nice murals. The people for sure will appreciate it.”