My home city of Bristol is also amongst other things, home to Swoop Antarctica, graffiti artist Banksy, and the UK’s biggest street art festival, UpFest.
I’m not really a huge fan of tours, and to be honest I’m not all that bothered about street art, which until very recently, I considered vandalism. So, on my only day in Buenos Aires (transiting to Antarctica) a graffiti tour of the city was pretty low down on the list of things I really wanted to do. It turns out, it was the best part of my day.
“Martin Ron, an Argentine artist, was at Upfest” said my guide Matt, the founding director of Graffiti Tours Buenos Aires. Martin had apparently painted a huge picture of a girl on the side of a building on North Street in Bristol. I remember seeing it, months earlier in the rain, and thinking how good it was. Now here I was, 7000 miles from North Street, standing in the bright sunshine of Buenos Aires, learning more about the art of Martin Ron, and many other very talented artists. I was also getting a unique view of the city itself.
Matt picked me up from my hotel at the reasonable time of 10am, which was much appreciated after a night flight the day before and a little jet lag. His first question to me was “Where would you like to go?”. There is graffiti all over the city and I chose the more relaxing, less edgy districts of Palermo, Belgrano and Villa Urquiza. Although I have no idea what I missed out on, I do know I had a fantastic and entertaining four hours. We got a mix of history and politics, orientation of the city and of course we learned quite a lot about the art, and what it means.
“Sticker”, “yarn bombing”, “stencil”, “paste up”, and “tagging” are all now terms in the parlance of street art that I know a bit better. I may have this wrong, but I think if I understood it correctly, “tagging” is the ugly stuff, the vandalism, and the scribbles you see on walls, that’s graffiti. Tagging is about marking your territory. Street art, is something totally different again, and from what I have seen today it is very impressive.
Most importantly I learned that street art is rarely just art. Street art can be translated like a language. Matt tells me the paintings hold stories, and political propaganda; they can show feuds between artists and sometimes collaboration, or their fights against environmental destruction or gender violence. It is also used as a way to prevent tagging; making a wall look beautiful with art means the football slogans and ugly signatures tend not to return. Home owners in the centre of Buenos Aires will often ask Matt to bring artists from around the world to paint their walls.
The old Argentine dictatorship decided to widen a street in Palermo to make room for a freeway; this involved knocking down all of the buildings in what was once a lovely tree-lined street. Although the wounds are healed, you can still see how street artists used the opportunity to express their distaste for the government. One fantastic piece of art works its way along a wall, telling the people who look at it of the tyranny of a dictator, and the loss of homes and trees.
The largest artwork in Buenos Aires is a wall, which when you look at it appears to be a confusing and random design – it feels a little “Salvador Dali”. Thankfully Matt was there to translate. It’s a huge painting 412m² (4000ft²), its name is “A Tale of Parrots”, and it’s amazing… and it happens to be by that same artist who painted in North Street, Martin Ron. As I stood and looked at the painting, Matt asked us to think about what it could represent, I hadn’t got a clue, but I’m not sure that was the point. I think the artist draws something that people will think looks nice; the subtleties can then be discussed, and that is what give the art its value.
Though it certainly was the main focus, the tour wasn’t just about street art. Along the way Matt, gave us a sense of what it’s like to live and work in Argentina, he also pointed out some cool buildings and gave us local “inside information”, which we couldn’t have hoped to understand on our own. For a tour I initially wouldn’t have got out of bed for, it was a real highlight: truly recommended as a great way to spend four hours in Buenos Aires.
Do you want to visit Buenos Aires or Santiago on your way to/from Antarctica? Would you like to combine your Antarctica adventure with some time exploring Patagonia too? Swoop can help you to plan all of the exciting extra elements of your trip; get in touch.
