Valparaiso ~ Graffiti
Valparaiso, Chile - a gallery for graffiti artists
Valparaiso, Chile, was a minor port on the world stage of European expansionism and trade until the second half of the 19th century. Then it became a major stopover for ships travelling between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by rounding the south end of the continent. The Panama Canal ended that. Like other cities abandoned by the tides of capital and technology, Valparaiso became a refuge for the poor. Eventually that evolved a subculture of artists and artisans.
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By the late twentieth century graffiti artists, home grown and migrants, had settled here, incubating a culture of street art rich with myth, fantasy and social commentary. The culture and work attracted other artists from North America and Europe. Despite the city government’s efforts to suppress graffiti art, the artists were irrepressible, adventuring out of the poorer areas, infiltrating the 'acceptable' arts and crafts areas. Eventually the city called a truce - the artists had won. These days, the city is widely promoting the work of its street artists, and the hillside streets are rich with the energy of colour and form.
The scale of the works is as various as the surfaces available. Often property boundaries are ignored by the work. Looking over the edge from winding streets, apartment and office buildings embrace fantasies and mythologies on walls and roofs. Turn the other way, and find intimate work transforming broken stoops and doorways into new dimensions and obscure tales.
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Among the fantastic creatures in Valparaiso's street art, there are re-interpretations of Indigenous myths in fish forms and ribbon-like snakes. Other artists have incorporated the fantastical creatures of Italian-Chilean illustrator Lukas (1934-88). A sensitive caricaturist of character 'types', his characters are still embraced and show up in street art. This may be surprising, as he was a well-known sympathizer and supporter of Pinochet and his brutal dictatorship. I didn’t see any work that contained both indigenous and Lukas’ elements. For many artists though, their language was their own, shared with street artists across continents.
It is easy to become immersed in the colour-filled hillside streets of Valparaiso - guides are plentiful and they are not shy to dwell on the politics embedded in many of the works that an uninformed visitor like me would not have grasped. Don't be shy, ask! There’s a lot to be learned here about Chile’s past and present, as unsettled as the volcanoes of its southern regions.
