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Published: August 30th 2012
The spirit of any city is quite often found in its streets, a mix of the people you encounter, the food stalls, the architecture, the music & well not the least of all, its urban art. After Berlin, here I am again in place where the streets speak to every day people! In Bogota, there is a wealth of it, intense, quite often taking strong stance on politics, war, the power of media or intra family violence. Street art is in Bogota the voice of and to the people, and a full part of Bogota vibe…which is precisely the reason why I decided to explore it during the 10 days I spent in the city (ok got to admit...in between daily classes of Colombian salsa, one doesn’t change!) A few words about Bogota’s street art…
It is
illegal as in most country but somehow for the large murals it seems that the artists would simply make a deal with the owner of the wall or get a special permission (guess this would most likely apply to the most well known artists); the other alternative for highly visible spots is night painting…Noticed as well that in some
cases, the authorities themselves would use this medium to communicate to the population, artists are then hired to do the actual painting but here there is definitely no creative freedom.
It is
literally everywhere…been really walking a lot (and in 10 days you can cover quite a bit…) and I cannot think of any place without street art. Its epicenter seems to be in the bohemian area of the city called La Candelaria but you can as well encounter wall painting in any other part of the city.
Like most places where street art is present, it has evolved from the simple “tag” into an
elaborated form of art, lately seems that some artists are going “multi dimensions” with some art installation or incorporating their immediate surrounding into the painting, although this is still quite new in Bogota.
Bogota is
the second city for street art in South America after Buenos Aires although it is quite young, only truly popular for the past ten years but very intense which make it even more interesting in a way.
What these voices are saying….
Colombia, is the country with one of the
Work in progress
Bogota, Colombia, without surprise this is strongly reflected in its street art,
anti war pieces are literally everywhere...
Domestic violence remains a major society problem, in Bogota only, one case is reported every half an hour & at Colombia level a women dies of domestic violence every four days (according to national forensic institute), this topic can be found as well in Bogota street art though slogans and mural paintings.
The
cult of beauty and Colombia’s flourishing industry of esthetical surgery is another one; it is depicted in quite crud ways by some of its artists.
Colombian society seems to be perceived by some as made of layers based on people skin colors and social origins, the colonialist domination having been replaced by another type of domination and
discrimination. Colombia is made of a mix of ethnicities, and quite a few artists are reminding passerby that all are equal and no discrimination based on ethnicities should take place.
The
free trade agreement that entered into force a few months ago
between Colombia (one of the few if not the only one right wing government in South America)
and US as well as the alignment of Colombia with the US is yet one more burning topic in Bogota’s street.
Some of the artists turning Bogota’s streets alive
To start with, for anyone interested in Bogota street art, I can only recommend the following website, excellent video of street art in the making in the streets of Bogota and plenty of links toward artists’ pages and one of the reference book on the subject
“Calle Esos Ojos” http://www.bogotastreetart.com/index2.htm Now, here are a few of them, but there is plenty more where I simply couldn’t identify the name of the artist, although these were just as interesting as some of the pieces done by the “big names”
•
DjLu (juegasiempre), my favorite one, takes
strong stance on war and gunsin general and their impact on future generations. Truly enjoyed the way he takes simple drawing and replace part of it with guns: the wings of a fly (“insectos artillados”), the straw in a martini glass, Jesus’ cross, a men walking stick. On the same theme, all around the city one can see pineapple drawn into a grenade shape (“pina Granada”) or
drawing of a men walking with an umbrella to protect himself from a rain of guns, these are as well DjLu trademarks.
•
Toxicomano, punk inspired artist, which focus very much on the society of consumption we live in and how some media can make people blind & the role they play within households – my favorite is the one whereas the housewife is replaced by a TV set with a large eye on the screen, the “wife” blind the eyes of her husband who exclaim himself
“Now I can see”(“Ahora lo puedo ver”). His cartoonish style at times reminiscent of early 50’s adds while at other more iike comic books style is as well an easy one to spot.
•
Lesivo, another prolific artist which pieces can be found all around the city. One of the main topics that keep coming back in its paintings is the
right to freedom taking a somehow satirical look at what we might perceive as freedom. He is questioning passerby through cartoonish drawings about the meaning of it with drawings such as “pagando para no ser libre!” (paying to not be free). Another
topic which I found quite interesting is the
internal fight between the men and the beast(or at least its animal instinct), where does mankind stop?
•
Guache, with its distinctive style, highly colorful & elaborated paintings with an amazing depth to it, is hard not to be noticed when walking around. One of the key sentence that keeps coming back is
“Mucho Indio!”, a catchy one using the word indigenous in a proud way whereas it is normally associated with negative meaning such as uncivilized and this is somehow one of his point…As one can read on Mucho Indio page, “
mucho indio is the art of discovering the newest in the older. mucho indio is the music of a new racial mix based in respect”. Guache communicates quite a bit as well on another society problem which is the intra family abuses might it be on the kids or on the women, placing once more the respect at the epicenter of all his
messages.
And a few others you might see while walking around:
•
Rodez new colorful mural painting in Bogota Candelaria is as well not to
be missed. Still cannot believe that I came only a few days after he painted it! Ahhh found it on his FB too late...especially keeping in mind that he spends quite a bit of time in Buenos Aires so it is not like he is all the time around...
• Black and white Paste up & large colorful work by
Stinkfish • And the one that got me wonder for a few days until I managed to find out about it on the net, is
Crisp with its tiny
black and white tribal masks spread all around the city
An alternative way to get “introduced” with Bogota vibe, on bicycle that is!
As with any new place I get to visit, I always enjoy discovering it on foot first and did quite a bit of that… Then, started to explore further using public transports (and Bogota got a great public transport network!) but still something was missing…
To start understanding a place,
only locals can give you the keys to read what you see through the local prism and not your own references, so although I am not a big fan of tours, when it came to
Bogota street art, history and culture, a bike tour seemed to be the perfect key !
Now, I didn’t feel like joining a tour with many participants but rather have something a bit more special and tailor made to what I was interested in and when I read about Mike’s street art bike tour, that was it, this was the one I wanted to do!
Sunday morning, still quite chilly in Bogota and off I was to the Candeleria where the agency is located. By pure coincidence, I happened to ask for the tour to take place on
Sunday, not knowing that this was
THE day for bicycles and pedestrians in Bogota, lucky me!
Part of the city is closed down for that occasion, and it feels like the whole population of the city is taking the streets, concerts here and there, whole family going out, painters, more music and well my favorite of all, even more street food than usual !
Ridding with Juan,
felt like going around the city with a friend, chatted a lot about everything, learned a lot about his country and Bogota, and had plenty of occasions
to enjoy some amazingly tasty Colombian coffee "Tinto" (my new favorite spanish word!).
When it comes to street art, Juan knows the city like the back of his pocket, so he made me discovered some hidden gems while giving this
additional dimension (the socio political background that is) to some of the paintings and tags which make the whole thing so much more interesting! His interest in Aid Work and actual involvement in helping some of the most impoverished area of Bogota or his approach to people in general
“got 8 millions friends in Bogota, even though not all of them know it yet” make the whole day (yes spent 6 hours on bike) a very human and heart-warming experience.
Many thanks to him and to Julian the owner of
"Cafe de la Fonda" (Calle 24 N19-96), a local coffee producer who export cafe in the entire world (including Iraq...still cannot believe it!), who made me the best coffee I had so far in Colombia.
Traveler tips: go and explore Bogota on bikes !
www.bogotabiketours.com And a few more traveler tips/ non steet art related but worth to mention for anyone
Toxicomano
Bogota, Colombia who might stay in Bogota without using a guide book...
Go local! Transportation system in Bogota is super simple & cheap. Mostly two ways that you can easily combined depending where you want to go:
• the Transmilenio a bus system with dedicated lanes that bring you for 1400 pesos from one side of the city to the other using magnetic card that you can recharge (and it is handy to have a bit of credit on it as queue at pick hours can be really long). As for the direction simply ask to one of the employee and they will put you in the right direction - goes as well to the airport
• collectivos (bus that works a bit like a taxi) that bring you about everywhere but which are slightly more tricky to understand at the beginning as only the main stops are listed in front of the bus, but then you can stop anywhere along the way; one ticket will cost you 1450 pesos - these go as well to the airport and bus terminal.
Discover colombian salsa! Quite a few schools where you can learn together with
DJLU
Bogota, Colombia locals (group classes), the one I went to for a week two hours a day is called Paso Latino (Av Caracas, N46-91 Piso 2). Excellent & fun school and another great way to go local! Quite cheap too as for 5 classes of 2 hours (first one was free) paid 85'000 pesos (equivalent of 37 Euros) and then the more classes you take the cheaper it goes...for 9 classes of two hours would have been only 110'000 pesos. If you need a one on one class they can arrange for it too.
You can then go out and practice, especially on week ends where you can dance salsa about everywhere!
Give a try to street food! Absolutely not the lighest meal ever but taste great & there is some many types that every day you can try something different; for snacks, head to the fruit stalls ! For 1000 pesos (0.5 Euros), you get a full plastic glass of srawberries or mango or any other fruit they might have at that time, yami !
Food wise still, it you head to
restaurant go at lunch time, as it is when you get the best deals
(between 7000 and 10'000 pesos for a full meal including drinks) and when (except week ends) restaurants are truly alive as during week days colombian normally dont go out for dinner. And if you cannot take any more chorizo con patatas, there is one area of the city where you only find fish restaurants near La Candelaria, very local and definitely worth to try for its ceviche! (carrera 4 / calle 21)
Accomodation wise, there is plenty of choice in Bogota; stayed at Los Andos, an hostel that feel more like a bed&breakfast (no dorms/ no real hostel atmosphere) but which is very well located (5mn walk from the zona rosa, one of the party area in town) in a safe area even at night, has decent rooms and whose staff was definitely nice and helpful.
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TinNiE
" Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness "
lovely photos :)
great to know about the different street artists, thanks for sharing! happy travels. x