guest post by tricia #2

Today is a holiday in Argentina. I always joke that there is always a holiday in Argentina, and they definitely have more than their fair share. But this one is legit. It's their 4th of July. Here's a picture we took on our way into town:

It seems as if there is a street named 25 of May in every neighborhood, and there is also a town with that name in the Buenos Aires West mission.
We started the day shopping in Palermo Viejo. My parents took me to the most darling bakery called Le Pain Quotidien. They have them in California and up and down the eastern seaboard, so I will definitely be seeking them out here. We sat in a outdoor courtyard filled with old bricks, tile and potted plants. They had overhead heating to ward off the chill of the fall day. But it was pure loveliness.
Then the main attraction of our day was taking a Graffiti Tour. Apparently, I only made it in one picture all day:

Here's my mom's blog about the day, all cleaned up for the missionary moms and dads. Check out my thoughts at the bottom for the real dirt.
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Buenos Aires' welcoming attitude toward graffiti has made it one of the world's top capitals for international street muralists, showcasing well-known urban artists such as Blu of Italy, Jef Aerosol of France, Aryz of Spain, Roa of Belgium, and Ron English of the United States. We went on a graffiti tour in the city called Hidden Walls. We learned all kinds of stuff about graffiti. Since I knew nothing about graffiti art to start with, I found it all pretty interesting. One of the groups that is particularly active in Buenos Aires right now always incorporates the sun into their work. The picture at the top shows firefighters working in La Boca. The two works at the bottom show mother’s that are struggling to find their children who were stolen during one of the past dictatorships. We went to another part of the city and actually ran into an artist who was painting a piece about La Boca!
I doubt that I would have recognized it on my own, but as soon as the guide explained it to us, it made perfect sense!
La Boca is such a well-known section of the city that has become very famous. Very often when you see pictures of the city, you see pictures of this neighborhood.
So, it became easier to identify the houses sitting on the shoulders of the Italian immigrants that first settled there.
I would like to go back and see how it turns out when the piece has been completed.

While a lot of graffiti is done with spray paint, it can also be done with latex paint. We saw quite of bit of graffiti done with stencils, as well.

 

We learned that the life of a piece of graffiti is only about 3 years. In any scenario, after 3 years, if another artist wants to cover your space, it is considered acceptable. If you want to paint over someone’s work sooner, you better be careful or you might find all of your own works covered, in a sort of graffiti war.
The child below features in several graffiti works in the city. He was originally in a newspaper waving a flag. The artist used the piece to make a stencil but shows him with a paintbrush instead. When the plastic for stencils became very expensive during the last economic crisis, the artists used old x-ray sheets. Up close we could see the patchwork of those sheets. This particular building is a newspaper company. The owner got tired of political activists painting his building and actually hired several famous graffiti artists to come and paint his building…so it should be safe for a few years now.

We continued on to another part of the city with many old warehouses. Some of them are still in use as businesses, and we saw some that have been sort of renovated and serve as indoor soccer facilities, for example.
To improve the area, an art jam was held last November. Some of the famous graffiti artists listed above, as well as many others came from all over the world  and spent three days painting. Many of them worked together incorporating their ideas into giant pieces that may or may have a theme.

This maiden has been captured and sits in a boat at sea. I found the guard dog particularly entertaining.

 

My personal favorite was the giant sea turtle. The man with the dog painted below it are life size. Really, it is very hard to portray how big and impressive this piece, and the others are, that we saw on the tour. This was done by Argentine muralist, Martin Ron. He actually came back in March this year and fixed some of the details that had started to fade.

This one was done by two United States artists. When they were given this space on an Italian ice cream factory, they asked for a little history. They learned that when the economy collapsed in 2001, and the owners could no longer pay the workers, they all showed up at the factory anyway, and kept on working.  The last hand that would complete the unity symbol is nearby, next to the ice cream cones. The 41 ice cream cones each represent one of the workers.

____________________________________________________________OK, so I have to say that this was super-duper cool. I can't wait to take my kids on a tour. But it won't be this one. For one thing, we went to some seedy areas. Like the minibus followed us as we walked along the street and the guide told us we had to stay together and if she said, "Get in the bus," she meant, GETINTHEBUSRIGHTNOW. That was a little surreal. Thankfully, there were extra cops out, probably for the holiday, and the streets seemed extra quiet. So that was good.
To finish the tour, we drove through a part of town that the guide said we should never go to because it was full of gang members and hookers. And there were. Because I saw them. But at that moment, I also found myself saying these words: "Oh look, there's one of our chapels."
No joke.
We also went to a beautiful street called Calle Lanin. An artist, Marino Santa Maria, decided to transform the ugly street he grew up on by painting in contrasting colors and covering the building with mosaics. They have been working on it for over 10 years. This is the artist's house:

We ended our day at Morelia's. Yum