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I was late to Plaza Anibal Pinto, where the graffiti walking tour I was joining was scheduled to meet. My group was nowhere to be found. Luckily Al the organizer responded to my What’s App message and told me where to find Elias, the guide.
I sprinted uphill to catch up, and made it, panting the whole time. The graffiti tour covers the hills of Cerro Concepcion and Alegre, and we were on our way.
5 photos. Please click arrows to navigate.
One of the highlights was encountering the works of Un Kolor Distinto, a pair of artists with a distinctive style of bold colors and the characters they draw all have long noses.On this wall (first photo in slideshow), UKD drew some archetypal Chilean characters based on a children’s story by Renzo Pecchenino called El Livro del Reino Bestial. There’s un choro, un gallo pulpo (long tentacles- representing those out for your money), un mosca, un patudo (representing a freeloader), and so on.
He also introduced us to recognizing basic graffiti design elements like wildstyle (a lot of the letters end in arrows), throw-ups, power lines, bomba, and brillos (finishing touches usually depicted as gleaming paint spots).
Click thumbnails to see the full photo.
He also showed us how to distinguish between the works of different artists. LRM is known for his psychedelic works, INTI for indigenuous depictions, and Charky makes frequent use of a hummingbird motif. Telli from Brigada Negotrópica Crew does these great works with fat marker and acrylic. Stencils are relatively rare in Valparaiso (as of the time I visited), and one of the few doing that was Stinkfish from Colombia.
We ended the tour at a spot close to this “art installation”. This place is close to the night spot area of Valpo, where backpacking tourists and locals gather to get drunk at night. Inevitably when they stagger out of the clubs, they will be searching for places to pee, and this unfortunate home always seems to be the most convenient peeing place due to its location. The homeowner was a good natured one though, and he put up a little toilet bowl on that spot labeled “Monument to the Water Closet (WC)”.
Other snapshots from this trip on Flickr.
