Late winter vs early spring

Here you’ll find some shots from two of the more central, and perhaps easy to find spots for urban art in Barcelona, the Parc de les Tres Xemeneies near avinguda Paral.lel, which is on the border between the ever-gritty (but overpriced) Raval and the recently-hip Poble Sec neighborhoods; and the Jardins de Walter Benjamin, which are just near the bottom of Montjuic, at the beginning of the road which leads to the Port and later the airport.

These are both part of the legal painting walls initiative, so artists have more time to paint, can do so in broad daylight, and have relatively little to worry about in the way of law enforcement interference. That said, the Parc de les Tres Xemeneies is frequently used for neighborhood events and is also a skate park, so it can also sometimes be difficult to work in peace, if that’s what’s desired.

There are also shots from the Arnau Gallery public art project which is on Paral.lel, and is always worth checking out when in the area.

There are various artists and styles in this batch of images, among my favorites are the tribute to the late hip hop star Craig Mack, and Peter Griffin from the Family Guy.

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More shots from Tarifa

As the winter weather sets in, I took a look back to my holidays in September, which took me to the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula, the seaside town of Tarifa. It is indeed a special place, where the Atlantic and the Mediterranean meet. In the midst of such beauty and tranquility, it would be easy to miss the murals and street art that punctuate the walls along the sea walk. Most of my walks were around sunset, and admittedly, most of my gaze was consumed by each evening’s unique sunset. Below are the shots that managed to distract me from the setting sun.

Street art at sunset: Tarifa

I am rapidly exhausting the 13 gb which I purchased from WordPress a few years back, so while I debate my different plan options, I’m going to be keeping the media to a minimum, at least for my September posts.

This image comes from my 9-day trip to the Southern Spanish region of Andalusia, specifically the town of Tarifa, which is the southernmost point on the Iberian peninsula. From certain points, it’s possible to see Morocco, which is just over 10 miles away. Indeed, when starting the car, I often picked up Moroccan radio, and on some beaches, I needed to disable my mobile data, as I had been picked up by Moroccan mobile networks.

Tarifa is also where the Mediterranean and the Atlantic meet, and if you take the short man-made pathway to the Isla de Paloma, you have the Mediterranean on one side, and the Atlantic on the other, which you can see in the other photo I’ve included.

As for the street art, this was found on a small shed during one of my daily walks along the beach to check out the stunning sunsets, which are slightly different each day.

End of year near Paral·lel and Galeria Arnau

My last set of shots for 2017 here in Barcelona came near the Three Chimneys Park just off Paral·lel, which hosts the “free walls” graffiti project. Be sure to check this article from July, via fellow blogger Barcelona Lowdown. The other photos are from just across the street at the (relatively) new Arnau Gallery, the open-air mural project which has a rotating schedule of public exhibitions. The one in this post was replaced about two weeks ago, but it’s definitely worth the trip if you’re in town. Here is a link to the facebook page with some past work, and some interesting videos.

Shots with the masters

Italian artist TVBoy, who has gained notoriety for portraits of the Pope and Donald Trump, Messi and Cristiano, and just yesterday an embrace between deadlocked politicians Mariano Rajoy and Carles Puigdemont. My shots are decidedly less contraversial in nature, portraits of modernized masters Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso, reimagined as street artists. I’ve also decided to include two photos of myself with the masters. This dynamic duo (minus me) can be found on the Carrer de Santa Tecla, near Corsega, in Gràcia.

Gone but not forgotten…street art as ephemera

Just after the point where my street changes names from Bruniquer to Terol–it actually does so 4 times before finally ending–there is a dead end street/alleyway where you can find a blue doorway which has been decorated, and over-decorated constantly during the time I’ve had this blog. Saturday morning, I noticed that the artist TVboy had pasted up a giant image of Frida Kahlo dressed as a tourist, complete with an I ♥ BCN t-shirt. I snapped a quick photo, but as is often the case in sunny Barcelona, the time of day left a heavy shadow. On my way back home just two hours later, the sun had changed position , and I was hoping to get a better shadow-free shot. It wasn’t to be, however, as someone had come by and sprayed an orange cover over Frida, leaving just her eyes free. While I was a bit dismayed at not having been able to get my photo, I don’t personally see this as an act of destruction. I prefer to see it as part of the natural process, albeit quite accelerated, of what happens to art that is in the street, unprotected by vigilant museum security, alarms, glass casing, or velvet ropes.

Something similar happened to another piece by TvBoy which gained international media attention. The artist had pasted up an image of international football superstars Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo locked in a passionate kiss, just before one of the famous “Clasico” matches that take place between eternal rivals Barça and Real Madrid. It was near Plaça Catalunya, one of the most highly-traversed points in the Catalan capital. I won’t include a photo here, as my personal policy for this blog is that all photos must be taken by me, and in this case, I missed my opportunity, as not only did someone remove the image, but the entire abandoned petrol kiosk which hosted the image was removed. A bit overdramatic, in my opinion. In any case, here is a link to the Ronaldo-Messi photo, and another that was placed in Italy near the Vatican just this week of  Pope Francis and US President Donald Trump.

Dragons and changing faces…Late March near the 3 chimneys

The shots from this entry are from early to mid March and come from the “Tres Xemeneies”, or Three Chimneys park, just off Parallel Avenue. This is a part of the “free walls” project, and a popular destination for Barcelona’s active skater scene, as well as a favorite spot to get pictures for this blog. Most of these are gone, as the image turnover on this popular painting site increases as the weather gets better. I’ve tried to include the three chimneys in the photos for a bit of perspective.

Pre-spring around Poblenou

These are some shots from around the Poblenou neighbourhood, taken around the first week of March. The majority come from the “Free Walls” project, but there are also a few from around the Glories area, and an abandoned building site which had a hole in its fence.

Some interesting details worth noting are the now-customary anti-Trump art, along with a small mural with legs, in front of which you can see a shopping cart. That shopping cart is not abandoned, and is actually used by the African migrants who use them to wander the city gathering scrap metal, and who’ve made a home in a nearby encampment. These encampments are very similar to the ones built up by the Roma people, who also make their living on scrap metal and recycling, though some Roma are fortunate enough to have large vans to transport their cargo.

As the warmer weather approaches, I expect to see more turnover of the work on the free walls, so I’ll post as often as possible. The free walls can be found here. Some of the other works can be seen here (approximately), near Poblenou Park.

Famous faces, in real life and fiction

I had to dig back in the archives as far as May to get a few of these shots–a difficult task as my dropbox photo cloud approaches 6,00 photos. It was worth the effort though, as I was able to find th photo I was looking for, as well as a few extras that hadn’t made it to the blog. All of this post’s images are of famous people, some of them real celebrities, while two others are famous characters from the small screen. The two fictional faces come from two of the most popular series on TV, The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. They come to us from artist Axe Colours, who was previously featured for his portrait of Walter White from another popular TV show, Breaking Bad. In the third image you can see the artist at work. The other three are pop culture icons in real life, Annie Lennox, Anthony Perkins, and Amy Winehouse–with who I think might be Rihanna in the lower right corner. Another image shows a curious mashup of Mickey Mouse and a scowling Madonna.

Exploring the Hangar

Last week, while making one of my occasional pilgrimages to the Poblenou neighbourhood, I stumbled upon an open gateway, beyond which I could see some murals. It’s a spot I pass by frequently, just off the northern exit of the Parc del Centre del Poblenou. I normally take this route as there are some walls of a partially abandoned building which get painted every now and again.

I’m normally not one just to enter an open gateway uninvited (one of the myriad reasons I’ll probably never move from taking pictures and archiving to creating urban art), but this time my curiousity got the best of me and I decided to wander in.

The name on the entrance said Can Ricart, but upon entering, I checked my phone location and noticed I was in a place called Hangar.org, which describes itself as “a centre for arts production and research, offering support to artists”. The website is here and the facebook is here. And here is some info about Can Ricart.

I didn’t have a chance to chat with anyone, as most of the occupants of the space seemed hard at work, but I did manage to take a stroll around the premises and get some interesting photos, including one of the huge pillar which is visible from the street outside the walls, and which I had photographed previously from afar.