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June 30, 2009
Medellin Street Art
I have a few memories of trips to Medellin from when I was 3 or 4 years old. Among the most vivid is one of a large religious mosaic or mural that occupied an entire wall of a 5 story building. Since I came to Medellin late may, I have been looking for that mural. Having been to almost every area of the city (and certainly every area I could have conceivably gone to when I was young), I can say with certainty and sadness that the mural no longer exists.
Nevertheless, I have discovered in recent weeks that all over the city are plenty of other murals just like it. Medellin has a reputation for great weather, hospitality, beautiful mountains, attractive women, violent crime, etc, but it also deserves a reputation for great public art.
The city, as I've mentioned in previous posts, is littered with vast sculptures by Fernando Botero. Right outside my office is a HUGE monument to the people of Antioquia by Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt. His sculptures are epic structures with dozens of characters involved in some sort of chaotic battle. Hard to explain, but please google it.
What has surprised me about Medellin, however, is its wall art. Looking outside my window, I can see a replica of a Botero painting of two dancers on the wall of a downtown building. Two blocks in front of the mayor's office is another replica, this one much larger, of a Francisco Antonio Cano painting of early 20th century Antioquian peasants. About ten feet from that mural is another one honoring Medellin's tango tradition. Directly below it is another mural of downtown Medellin in the 1920's.
All of these murals, and hundreds of others like them, have been painted with great pride and care. Almost every mural in the city is a tribute to its culture or history. People paint their pride on walls. In one of the housing projects I'm overseeing, someone painted a mural of Moravia, honoring their former neighborhood.
I also discovered on this trip to Medellin that the city had its own avant-garde muralist, Pedro Nel Gomez.
Medellin also has some great graffiti. With the exception of soccer fans, Medellin's graffiti artists mostly refrain from merely writing random stuff on walls. In part, this may be because, years ago, scribbled graffiti often carried a very real message of violence. When I last came to Medellin in 2003, I saw plenty of FARC and paramilitary graffiti. Entire neighborhoods were covered in ugly, threatening scribbles. Criminal gangs used nearly every wall in sight to instill fear and declare their control over a certain area.
In contrast, graffiti in Medellin today consists of large, colorful, elaborate paintings, often with positive political messages. There are plenty of murals honoring victims of violence in Medellin and asking for lasting peace in the city. Street artists seem to put as much thought, heart and effort into their graffiti as Botero put into his paintings. Sometime this weekend or next, I will try to tour the city and get some photos of wall art.
Posted by Pablo Rojas at June 30, 2009 08:36 PM
