WEBVTT

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Muralism has always been linked
to the political context in Argentina.

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To the social context.

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We’re always invaded
by a political issue.

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And if the bus fare goes up,
it\'s a political issue,

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If electricity goes up,
someone is going to get angry, and ...

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they\'ll take to the street.

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What happens on the street,
and in public art,

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they\'re there to remind us.

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To make us remember.

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Painting for me is ...
a form of communication.

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A dialog.

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For me it goes hand in hand,
what I paint,

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a policeman setting fire, with ...
people sleeping in the street,

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it\'s all violence.

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♪ They call me this and that
\'cos I live my way ♪

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♪ I get dirty from this life
as if it were mud ♪

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♪ I try, I go
if it fails, I\'m screwed ♪

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♪ Always true to my desire
elbow to elbow ♪

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♪ The north takes me away
the north is mine ♪

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♪ I write it
every morning is a challenge ♪

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♪ I breathe, watch and trust ♪

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♪ And when the night comes
I stare at the moon and smile ♪

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♪ Nomad life
wherever life ♪

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♪ Lighter life
Live your way ♪

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♪ Live carefree
live as you want ♪

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♪ Don\'t let anybody set your horizon
or border ♪

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♪ Life without a boss
live without a master ♪

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♪ I\'m led by the beat
of my heart ♪

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♪ I ride the wind
and this song ♪

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♪ They say I\'m lost
I say revolution ♪

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In general we use the term \"porteño\"
to refer to the City of Buenos Aires,

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but the metropolitan area
has many more inhabitants.

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There are 3 million porteños,

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and 13 million inhabitants
in the metropolitan area.

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It\'s constant chaos,
connected by threads, and that ...

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keeps the city
in a constant state of crisis,

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or constantly being
put together and taken apart.

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And art here is also that.

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It\'s amazing to live like this,
it seems to me.

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Because everything is created
and everything is destroyed.

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‘Filete\' came about
during overwhelming urban growth

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occurring in the late 19th,
early 20th Century,

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with the great immigration wave
into Argentina.

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European immigrants basically,
from Spain, Italy ...

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Many merchants begin
to transport goods in their carts,

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pulled by horses,
with large wooden wheels, and ...

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somehow
the need arises ...

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... to add an aesthetic,
to that vehicle.

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The word \"filete\" means
edge or thread, it comes from Latin,

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and it has to do with these
very neat, linear decorations,

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they become more complex over time,
and they add figures that are ...

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recovered from the masonry
of the buildings.

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From that pomposity that had flourished
with European architecture.

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And that moves to the flat surfaces,
so what the filete does is

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reproduce the three dimensions,
the volume of those figures,

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but with flat paint.

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We learned it with this technique,

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which provides a background to the figures,

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using pure colors, illuminating,

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and through the \"Japan\" technique,

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which is unique
to traditional Buenos Aires filete,

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give it volume.

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Japan is varnish with
some droplets of dye, pigment,

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that make it translucent,
but makes its color inconsistent.

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And depending on
how many layers of Japan it has,

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that gives it volume and realism.

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Those are the basic elements,
acanthus leaf, flowers,

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bows, ribbons, flags,
etc., things are added,

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and then everything that has to do
with Buenos Aires mythology is added.

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Relevant figures ... of tango,
of popular life of that time.

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It has to do with burlesque.

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It has to do with an appropriation
of an elitist style,

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a style born at the service
of the rich sectors of society.

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It is appropriated
by middle-class groups,

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and there is also
a recreation of that.

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And an exaggeration.

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And it gets a lot of colors,
and becomes something else.

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And it begins to merge
with all this urban mythology,

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and with this language of the people,
which is the \'lunfardo\' ...

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and something very different occurs.

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I\'m Freddy Filete,

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I dedicate myself to the old job of filete,
which emerged the late 1800s,

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I think the universe of the filete has to do
with summarizing images, symbols, letters,

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letter styles
that represent a people.

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Freddy came to filete
through painting letters.

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But the particularity
of the lettering work,

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is that they use the same brush
as the \'filete\' artists.

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And mastering the brush,

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is one of the primary things
for mastering the technique.

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So he had that advantage.

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After living in San Telmo,
he went to San Miguel,

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which is a town
in Greater Buenos Aires,

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and started working
in a cultural center there,

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“Raíces” Cultural Center,

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to teach filete lessons.

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And that\'s where \'Fileteadores del Conurbano\'
(Suburban Filete Artists) is born

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He had this idea of
going out to paint, as a group,

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to respond to the demand of some ...

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spaces that were not
necessarily commercial.

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And the particularity
that Freddy had in that,

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is that he brought filete to the mural.

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And that wasn’t so common,
actually it still isn\'t.

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Because by transferring it
to the large dimensions on the wall,

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he had to subvert the technique.

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He had to \"betray\"
that tradition a little.

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They transgress it
to achieve another goal.

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In Freddy\'s case that was it,
being able to paint big,

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anywhere,
on any surface.

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Painting for me is
a form of communication, a dialogue.

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This place is a factory
recovered by the workers.

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The factory was about to go bankrupt,

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the workers decided to take it
to continue producing

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so their families
wouldn\'t be put out in the street.

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And from there, the idea is

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to teach trades, and things
that empower workers.

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They offer a trade,
and on the other hand

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a tool for the resistance
of the factory itself.

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IMPA was an aluminum factory,
it made trays, foil ...

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There were 600 workers.

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And from there it went down to 160,
in 2003, when I entered.

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IMPA is the mother
of the recovered factories.

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We united with other factories
that were going through the same thing.

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Then we recovered
the work of other colleagues,

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helping them find the way
– applying everything they know –

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to produce without the boss.

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IMPA stands for
Metallurgical Plastic Printing Argentina.

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Our motto is
\'Occupy, Resist, Produce\'.

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The factory effectively remained a factory.

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It never lost that essence,
thanks to the \'filete\' artist,

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our partner Freddy.

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He was always
trying not to lose the essence.

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When Freddy asked me
to replace him in the workshop,

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I understood it from that place, well ...

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It’s still a place of resistance.

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I mean, we postulate this idea
of resistance ...

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not only of the cultural space,
of the work space,

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but also of a space
at the teaching level, at every level.

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In other words, it\'s a place
by workers, for workers.

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This is a metallurgical company,

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a cooperative
that was created very recently.

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The owners, who were
from a multinational corporation,

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left the country, and left
the facilities to the workers,

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and the workers are trying to survive,

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there were 400
who made car parts,

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and now there are less than 50.

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That’s the Argentina we live in.

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From 400 workers,
to 40 trying to survive.

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This muralist collective, the MAC,

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which stands for
Contemporary Argentine Muralism,

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what we are expressing
is a proposal,

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that begins with
\"The Argentina We Live In\",

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on this wall,

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and from the corner leftward,

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\"The Homeland We Want.\"

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Here Rubén Minutoli,

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who is working
on the trickle-down theory.

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The trickle-down theory
is ... immoral,

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they say it\'s
a drinking glass pyramid,

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if I fill the first one,

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it falls down
and fills the other cups.

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Then at some point,
it will reach the base,

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so in economic terms,
it says that

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if the ones above are better off,

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those below will surely be better off
at some point.

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So, this is the theory
that’s currently prevailing.

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This part of the wall,

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which is what I am in charge of designing,

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I am working on the idea
of \'the attack of the oligarchs\',

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which is an idea of
a fusion of multinational corporations,

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the Monsanto logo,
with the vultures,

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Clarín, Barrick, the Macri Society
which is this symbol,

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with a group of polo players
who are using wild dogs

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to attack a family
over here.

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Argentina
is a country known for ...

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having had one of the highest
unionization rates.

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In 2001, 2002, which had
very high unemployment rates,

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society invented other organizations,

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especially organizations
of unemployed workers,

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they were closely linked
to the matter of territory,

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entire neighborhoods
where people were unemployed.

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For example,
the act of blockading a street,

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as a way for our demands to be met,
differentiates us from other countries.

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This gives a sense,
a capacity to this country,

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of being able to form this type of organization,
and artist groups,

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who fight for these rights
and these claims.

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Muralism has always been linked
to the political context in Argentina.

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To the social context.

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From the beginning,
murals are proposed ...

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as political fact
within art.

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There is no school
of Argentine muralism,

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but there is a current,
a spine,

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that teachers followed,
and I try to follow it too.

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In Argentine muralism there are many influences,
but one of the important,

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although perhaps not directly
because of muralism itself,

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but because he was a very iconic character,

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was David Alfaro Siqueiros.

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What was important about
Siqueiros’s arrival in Argentina,

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was that he could do,
even in the basement,

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of the director\'s house
of the Crítica newspaper, a mural.

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For me it was a masterclass,

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and he taught the Argentine muralists
everything he knew,

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I also think that those must have been

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great political discussions,

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great discussions
regarding the role of the artist.

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That is, from the ideological view,
to the figurativism that he proposed,

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a modern figurativism,
linked to technological changes.

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All those concepts
that Siqueiros brought when he came,

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allowed Argentine muralism
to expand.

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Those he painted with formed a group
and painted the Pacific Gallery.v

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Muralism until that moment
was at the hegemonic points,

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where they had to negotiate that space
with the ruling elite.

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When the Spartacus Group emerged,
they proposed changing the focus.

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That\'s why they focus
on the working class and trade unions.

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That\'s why the Spartacus Group
is like the catalyst, actually,

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for the muralism that we follow.

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I believe that the one who achieves
the strongest social commitment

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is Carpani.

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He\'s the one who can gather
all the knowledge,

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in activism and in action,
and makes murals.

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It\'s a time when
the worker began to have strength.

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His workers are made of stone,

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strong, one sees them as powerful.

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Ricardo Carpani is a paradigm,
he is our paradigm.

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He’s someone who motivated
a post-dictatorship generation,

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to be able to regain
a communication tool

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and he also invited us
into a different aesthetic search.

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And Carpani stated that
in Argentina’s sociopolitical context,

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the only way to be
with the working class

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was through Peronism.

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You could have
all the ideals he wanted,

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but if you wanted
to reach the working class,

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the truth is that
you had to leave everything,

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and get down in the mud,
and be with the unions.

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Surely you can clearly distinguish
Latin American muralism

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from European muralism,
or that of other places in the world.

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The essential difference is
the artist’s attitude,

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and the commitment they adopt
in involving their ideology in the image.

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Which is not for sale,
it\'s not commercial.

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And muralism seeks that resignification
of Latin American identity.

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The real school of public art,

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born in Latin America,
and which expanded throughout the world,

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was muralism.

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The mural is the people\'s bulletin board.

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It generates questions
in those who don\'t know,

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it generates memories
in those who forgot,

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and it mobilizes people,
so it’s essential…

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that they\'re on walls,
murals, that tell stories,

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reclaim events
and keep memory alive.

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Some time ago,

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the muralists of Argentina
were discussing

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how long a mural should last.

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Which technique to use
for the mural to last 50 years.

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A flat wall, painted,

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is more likely to be covered
by a political poster or campaign.

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A wall relief, not so likely.

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Sgraffito gives me the possibility
that no one will come with their glue,

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to paint on it, or put up a paper,
a banner or something.

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Whereas the flat mural
lends itself to that.

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And they start sticking them up,
and the Government comes to remove them,

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they say \"let\'s paint\", and they forget
there was an important piece beneath it.

00:17:34.219 --> 00:17:36.680
It seems to me that
it\'s an outdated discussion.

00:17:36.972 --> 00:17:40.309
Because in a context
where they change your neighborhood,

00:17:40.601 --> 00:17:44.188
you are painting as a form
of resistance by the neighbors,

00:17:44.897 --> 00:17:47.274
and if you win,
the mural will last.

00:17:47.816 --> 00:17:50.486
If you lose, it doesn\'t matter
what technique you used,

00:17:50.778 --> 00:17:51.904
they will destroy your mural.

00:17:52.154 --> 00:17:55.616
The true multiplication
of what is being done,

00:17:55.616 --> 00:17:58.160
is done by the neighbors,
those who live here with it.

00:17:58.368 --> 00:18:01.955
We are here a couple of weekends,
and we leave,

00:18:01.997 --> 00:18:05.584
and the work will really last,
if the people around take care of it,

00:18:05.667 --> 00:18:08.629
and if they were able
to understand the message.

00:18:17.805 --> 00:18:21.433
Argentina,
during the last 100 years,

00:18:21.892 --> 00:18:25.437
has an official discourse,
in which half of our population,

00:18:25.729 --> 00:18:29.274
or actually 70%,
according to the census, doesn\'t exist.

00:18:30.734 --> 00:18:32.778
There are no \'morochos\',
brown people,

00:18:33.028 --> 00:18:37.658
according to Argentina\'s
official \'Euro-thinking\' view.

00:18:40.327 --> 00:18:43.914
But, personally
I have found that yes, I am morocho.

00:18:44.164 --> 00:18:47.626
Then I started looking for
my own past,

00:18:47.626 --> 00:18:50.129
my own ancestry,

00:18:50.212 --> 00:18:53.757
and based on that,
it’s not just me,

00:18:53.799 --> 00:18:56.260
it’s 70%
of the population,

00:18:56.677 --> 00:19:00.097
who aren’t in the books,
in the paintings,

00:19:00.222 --> 00:19:02.391
that is, we aren\'t anywhere.
We don\'t exist.

00:19:02.558 --> 00:19:03.809
As long as we don\'t exist,

00:19:03.976 --> 00:19:06.061
they’ll be able to keep saying
that we aren\'t anywhere.

00:19:08.856 --> 00:19:12.401
And I found different things,
for example the sun on our flag,

00:19:12.651 --> 00:19:15.404
according to Mitre,
who was an Argentine president,

00:19:15.654 --> 00:19:18.490
is called \"Febo\", \"Aurora\",
or whatnot.

00:19:18.657 --> 00:19:22.244
Actually Belgrano,
who created the flag,

00:19:22.661 --> 00:19:24.413
had thought of it totally differently.

00:19:24.413 --> 00:19:29.501
He thought about the union
between the natives and the Europeans.

00:19:31.795 --> 00:19:33.922
A mixed-race culture.

00:19:35.382 --> 00:19:37.050
That\'s why I draw the sun so much.

00:19:37.301 --> 00:19:41.471
To emphasize that they\'re forgetting
the 50% of our identity.

00:19:42.014 --> 00:19:45.142
So my sun does the opposite
of the sun on the flag.

00:19:45.392 --> 00:19:49.229
The sun on the flag gets whiter every year,
more European,

00:19:49.438 --> 00:19:51.940
more Febo, and less Inti.

00:19:52.399 --> 00:19:54.776
And mine gets more and more Inti,
and less Febo.

00:19:55.360 --> 00:20:00.365
The rays are more like stripes,
it has tattoos,

00:20:00.824 --> 00:20:02.534
it has fangs,

00:20:05.579 --> 00:20:07.956
it has a wide nose,
it\'s morocho,

00:20:08.749 --> 00:20:12.085
it\'s the 50% of our identity
that they\'re forgetting.

00:20:15.964 --> 00:20:18.967
♪ I have so many brothers ♪

00:20:19.092 --> 00:20:21.970
♪ that I can\'t count them ♪

00:20:22.804 --> 00:20:28.644
♪ In the valley, in the mountains,
on the prairie and in the sea ♪

00:20:29.269 --> 00:20:35.108
♪ Each one with his jobs,
with his dreams each one of them ♪

00:20:35.943 --> 00:20:38.403
♪ With hope ahead ♪

00:20:39.488 --> 00:20:41.657
♪ With memories behind ♪

00:20:42.616 --> 00:20:45.244
♪ I have so many brothers ♪

00:20:45.994 --> 00:20:48.288
♪ that I can\'t count them ♪

00:21:03.095 --> 00:21:05.597
Unlike other countries
in Latin America,

00:21:06.098 --> 00:21:09.685
in Argentina
the Army handed over power

00:21:09.768 --> 00:21:12.437
to a democratically
elected president,

00:21:12.479 --> 00:21:14.439
after a war defeat.

00:21:15.023 --> 00:21:17.150
So the fight for memory,

00:21:17.192 --> 00:21:20.696
and for the trial and punishment
of those guilty of state terrorism,

00:21:20.779 --> 00:21:23.907
was an issue that intersected
all these years of democracy.

00:21:24.032 --> 00:21:27.786
Argentina does not want to go back there,
we refuse to go back there,

00:21:28.036 --> 00:21:30.789
we refuse to go back
to violence.

00:21:30.789 --> 00:21:35.877
Our society is fairly intolerant
to political violence.

00:21:36.086 --> 00:21:38.088
One dead person at a social protest

00:21:38.130 --> 00:21:41.216
has already caused an institutional
crisis several times.

00:21:43.427 --> 00:21:48.807
The most representative mural
of a political moment in Argentina,

00:21:48.807 --> 00:21:52.436
is the mural
painted by Grupo Contraluz,

00:21:52.894 --> 00:21:54.479
on the Pueyrredón Bridge,

00:21:54.813 --> 00:21:57.274
which is when
Maxi and Darío are killed.

00:21:57.607 --> 00:22:01.320
Despite them considering it
a political graffiti, and not a mural,

00:22:01.445 --> 00:22:04.740
for me it\'s the most representative mural
of a historical moment.

00:22:05.032 --> 00:22:08.535
In fact, the mural
was painted almost 20 years ago,

00:22:08.618 --> 00:22:11.121
and if you dare
to touch it,

00:22:11.204 --> 00:22:14.958
people will come from anywhere
to break your fingers.

00:22:15.334 --> 00:22:16.710
That mural can\'t be touched.

00:22:17.127 --> 00:22:20.422
The police look at it,
and are itching to cover it up,

00:22:20.505 --> 00:22:22.174
but they won\'t be able to.

00:22:22.549 --> 00:22:25.344
Even today,
that mural transcends its creators.

00:22:25.969 --> 00:22:29.056
It became part
of popular iconography.

00:22:29.598 --> 00:22:35.103
In fact it\'s reproduced
on shirts, posters, magazines,

00:22:35.187 --> 00:22:37.647
in other murals,
in the rest of the country.

00:22:37.856 --> 00:22:40.859
When somebody talks about Maxi and Darío,
the first thing that comes to mind is that image.

00:22:41.026 --> 00:22:42.444
That mural.

00:22:44.946 --> 00:22:47.949
That\'s the context
that murals have to inhabit.

00:22:48.116 --> 00:22:51.870
Not with a specific image,
but with a specific moment.

00:22:52.454 --> 00:22:55.290
With being involved
in what is happening,

00:22:55.457 --> 00:22:57.292
and not keep it at arm’s length,
and ...

00:22:57.501 --> 00:23:00.337
\"Oh, well ...
oops how nice, in 2001 ...\"

00:23:00.462 --> 00:23:03.465
\"How nice what happened\",
and I paint the scenes ...

00:23:03.590 --> 00:23:06.259
No, you have to be
stuck there, in the mud,

00:23:06.385 --> 00:23:09.679
with your fellow people,
and the image will come out from there.

00:23:11.390 --> 00:23:14.684
Each victim from the working class
is portrayed in a mural.

00:23:15.268 --> 00:23:18.063
History books, no.
They can forget things.

00:23:18.146 --> 00:23:19.439
But the people don\'t.

00:23:19.606 --> 00:23:23.318
And the idea is to salvage that
on each wall, the memory.

00:23:30.617 --> 00:23:34.246
Historic events
have been so traumatic,

00:23:35.288 --> 00:23:41.169
they have pierced the social fabric so much,
and the symbolic fabric of every society,

00:23:41.837 --> 00:23:50.053
that there\'s a sort of
cultural mandate to rebuild.

00:23:50.262 --> 00:23:54.683
And it crosses everyone who ends up
producing one way or another.

00:24:21.626 --> 00:24:25.255
I build based on photography,

00:24:25.505 --> 00:24:28.425
and I make my pictorial
interpretation of that.

00:24:28.675 --> 00:24:30.093
They\'re my references,

00:24:30.677 --> 00:24:34.639
that allow me to build sketches,
which are then modified,

00:24:34.764 --> 00:24:36.433
and become paintings.

00:24:37.017 --> 00:24:39.102
And suddenly I started
to get more interested

00:24:39.269 --> 00:24:42.022
in the moments where
the image was not so accessible,

00:24:42.105 --> 00:24:45.525
beyond the narrative,
what the photo was telling,

00:24:45.650 --> 00:24:49.529
I liked those moments when
something had failed in the development,

00:24:49.571 --> 00:24:51.490
in the capture,

00:24:51.781 --> 00:24:54.201
and visually
it seemed very powerful,

00:24:54.576 --> 00:24:57.162
it kind of condensed
a very interesting metaphor,

00:24:57.245 --> 00:24:59.789
\"It\'s true, there\'s a point where
there’s interference,

00:24:59.831 --> 00:25:01.875
the image may disappear.\"

00:25:02.042 --> 00:25:06.296
So, visually it was like
a way to build that struggle.

00:25:06.588 --> 00:25:09.049
This force will always be there,
it will disfigure you,

00:25:09.090 --> 00:25:10.842
make you disappear.

00:25:11.927 --> 00:25:15.639
And then it was like a way
to start tracing,

00:25:15.931 --> 00:25:18.391
to make this idea visual.

00:25:19.476 --> 00:25:23.021
And specifically urban art,

00:25:23.063 --> 00:25:27.234
both what happens on the street,
and public art, has ...

00:25:27.359 --> 00:25:29.194
especially large murals,

00:25:29.236 --> 00:25:33.156
I think like the idea of the monument,
monumentality.

00:25:33.573 --> 00:25:35.283
They\'re there to remind us.

00:25:35.492 --> 00:25:37.077
To make us remember.

00:25:45.043 --> 00:25:47.462
These problems
that speak ...

00:25:47.546 --> 00:25:51.216
to a culture
that has very deeply internalized

00:25:52.092 --> 00:25:55.971
male superiority,
or female weakness,

00:25:56.096 --> 00:26:00.475
which manifest in symptoms
such as femicide,

00:26:00.642 --> 00:26:02.936
and not legalizing abortion.

00:26:03.103 --> 00:26:06.273
The non-legalization of abortion
is also a symptom

00:26:06.356 --> 00:26:09.943
of a society that has not evolved
in that perspective either,

00:26:10.277 --> 00:26:12.654
that doesn’t believe that
women own their bodies

00:26:12.779 --> 00:26:15.448
that doesn’t believe that her body
is owned by herself.

00:26:16.408 --> 00:26:20.287
The body is still a disputed territory,
and a political territory,

00:26:20.370 --> 00:26:22.747
where the powerful
will try to exert control.

00:26:24.165 --> 00:26:28.003
The experience of going to a march
for the legalization of abortion,

00:26:28.169 --> 00:26:31.756
chatting and exchanging
with different women,

00:26:31.798 --> 00:26:33.592
each one sharing their experience,

00:26:33.717 --> 00:26:35.844
most of them sharing
abortion experiences,

00:26:36.386 --> 00:26:40.473
and each one feeling
a symbolic, historical reparation,

00:26:40.599 --> 00:26:43.101
with the idea of the possibility
that this could become a law.

00:26:43.143 --> 00:26:46.146
And then the deep disappointment
that it didn’t.

00:26:46.354 --> 00:26:48.815
Everything is written
in the streets.

00:26:49.024 --> 00:26:52.861
In the marches,
on the signs that every woman held,

00:26:52.944 --> 00:26:56.114
in the photos, in the videos
that were made later,

00:26:56.364 --> 00:26:59.492
in the graffiti that was written
on the walls of Congress,

00:26:59.576 --> 00:27:01.536
and along the way,
on Avenida de Mayo,

00:27:01.661 --> 00:27:03.246
they could put into words

00:27:03.330 --> 00:27:06.124
part of all that pain
and all that frustration.

00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:09.544
It was a problem
that society

00:27:09.628 --> 00:27:12.547
was needing
to vocalize, to verbalize.

00:27:12.964 --> 00:27:16.968
That whole movement created
a spirit of a lot of struggle,

00:27:17.010 --> 00:27:18.928
and sorority
among women.

00:27:19.137 --> 00:27:21.473
This seems to me to have had
a very profound effect.

00:27:21.556 --> 00:27:24.309
on the bodies and spirits
of Argentine women.

00:27:43.453 --> 00:27:47.207
To think of a wall
as a space in which

00:27:47.499 --> 00:27:51.586
color may appear,
verbal messages may appear,

00:27:51.711 --> 00:27:55.423
is to think in a different way,
about that urban space.

00:27:55.423 --> 00:27:58.510
It’s an urban space
inhabited in a different way.

00:27:58.760 --> 00:28:01.680
And graffiti indicates that:

00:28:01.680 --> 00:28:07.519
that it isn’t a harmonious
and totally reconciled society,

00:28:07.560 --> 00:28:12.190
and that there are different ideological positions
that weigh on everyday life.

00:28:19.948 --> 00:28:23.576
When you said “graffiti”
in the 80s and 90s, in Argentina,

00:28:23.618 --> 00:28:24.953
they thought of a text.

00:28:25.870 --> 00:28:27.789
We called it
\"textual graffiti\",

00:28:27.872 --> 00:28:29.624
which meant they were
intended to be read,

00:28:29.749 --> 00:28:32.836
and that they had a very strong
particularity at that time,

00:28:32.919 --> 00:28:36.339
they had a great debt
to the graffiti of May 68 in France

00:28:37.257 --> 00:28:39.843
They took some fixed verse forms ...

00:28:40.093 --> 00:28:45.265
some Latin forms, by Marcial,
a Latin poet from Roman antiquity,

00:28:45.598 --> 00:28:47.600
which is the epigram.

00:28:47.726 --> 00:28:50.019
It\'s that kind of little poem,

00:28:50.270 --> 00:28:54.023
which has a first part,
whose sense goes in one direction,

00:28:54.232 --> 00:28:55.900
and a second part,

00:28:55.984 --> 00:28:59.237
that reverses the meaning,
generally in an ironic way.

00:29:00.071 --> 00:29:02.323
WHITE WALLS SAY NOTHING

00:29:08.455 --> 00:29:10.331
When the \"tag\" arrives,

00:29:10.999 --> 00:29:13.418
it produces a kind of estrangement.

00:29:13.543 --> 00:29:17.005
People who are used to reading
these graffiti that have to do ...

00:29:17.297 --> 00:29:19.549
with playful
and philosophical elements,

00:29:19.591 --> 00:29:21.259
wonder
\"what is this\".

00:29:21.342 --> 00:29:23.845
They notice that
there’s a mark on the wall,

00:29:23.970 --> 00:29:26.890
but it’s not understood
in terms of meaning,

00:29:26.973 --> 00:29:29.476
or what the purpose
of these marks on the wall is.

00:29:30.810 --> 00:29:34.647
In the illegibility,
for example of a tag,

00:29:34.939 --> 00:29:38.693
there is concealment,
but on the other hand,

00:29:38.777 --> 00:29:41.780
there is a reading operation
that is done anyway.

00:29:41.821 --> 00:29:45.158
Even if it’s a reading of that
which is not fully understood.

00:29:46.117 --> 00:29:50.330
And that reading operation requires
something else, because it challenges you,

00:29:50.538 --> 00:29:54.334
it challenges you to read
a more complex meaning.

00:30:08.056 --> 00:30:12.435
When you work,
you have a schedule, a boss, rules ...

00:30:12.519 --> 00:30:14.395
when you drive a motorcycle
you have rules ...

00:30:14.646 --> 00:30:16.981
Graffiti is fun for me
because there is no way to say:

00:30:17.065 --> 00:30:20.318
\"This one is beautiful\", \"This one is ugly\",
\"This is wrong\", \"This is fine\".

00:30:20.860 --> 00:30:23.196
You do it, you have fun,
and that\'s it.

00:30:33.331 --> 00:30:36.125
I think graffiti
is mood.

00:30:36.543 --> 00:30:40.338
When I don\'t paint for a while,
I sort of feel bad ...

00:30:40.588 --> 00:30:43.132
like I have something inside,
I need ...

00:30:44.259 --> 00:30:46.052
to express it in some way.

00:30:46.219 --> 00:30:49.889
I make plans, I gather the cans,
and that\'s when ...

00:30:50.473 --> 00:30:52.141
... I feel good

00:31:05.572 --> 00:31:07.282
I’ve always liked to draw ...

00:31:09.242 --> 00:31:13.162
and I also really liked
mischief, setting things on fire,

00:31:13.288 --> 00:31:16.082
climbing on roofs,
breaking things,

00:31:16.249 --> 00:31:19.919
breaking into places, stealing things ...
but as a kid.

00:31:20.044 --> 00:31:21.838
And graffiti related to all that.

00:31:35.143 --> 00:31:38.897
I started painting trains
and all that stuff around 2007,

00:31:39.564 --> 00:31:41.107
it\'s another type of game,

00:31:41.274 --> 00:31:43.610
like a next step,
something much harder,

00:31:43.943 --> 00:31:47.697
but at the same time more entertaining,
to achieve what you set out to do.

00:31:48.448 --> 00:31:49.616
You find a place,

00:31:49.657 --> 00:31:51.826
or you hear of a place that can be painted,

00:31:51.910 --> 00:31:53.578
it\'s a whole process,

00:31:53.786 --> 00:31:56.664
you have to find ideas
on how to get in, how to get out, and ...

00:31:56.789 --> 00:31:57.874
you have to try.

00:32:06.257 --> 00:32:09.552
Well, unlike a \"crew,\"
I\'ve always done it alone.

00:32:10.720 --> 00:32:13.097
Everything was thanks to me,
or my fault.

00:32:13.181 --> 00:32:16.643
It consisted of investigating it,
observing, going, painting,

00:32:16.935 --> 00:32:20.939
watching my back alone,
filming, photographing, and leaving quietly.

00:32:24.734 --> 00:32:29.572
Unlike muralists, street artists,
who make money from it,

00:32:29.697 --> 00:32:31.199
for us it\'s the opposite.

00:32:31.240 --> 00:32:33.076
Actually, what we do
screws us over.

00:32:33.159 --> 00:32:37.372
It screws up our schedules,
the family time, the money...

00:32:37.538 --> 00:32:39.999
So our satisfaction actually
comes from somewhere else.

00:32:40.083 --> 00:32:43.711
To think about the whole sequence,
imagine what you\'re going to do,

00:32:43.795 --> 00:32:46.923
gathering the cans ...
The important thing was everything you did.

00:32:47.715 --> 00:32:49.634
Everything it took you to do that.

00:32:49.717 --> 00:32:52.553
From when you leave your house,
until you finish it.

00:33:02.438 --> 00:33:06.901
In Argentina there was a certain permissiveness,
throughout our history,

00:33:06.985 --> 00:33:10.363
about graffiti.
And I attribute it to the fact...

00:33:10.530 --> 00:33:12.991
that the political party itself,
which is an institution,

00:33:13.116 --> 00:33:14.534
within society,

00:33:14.659 --> 00:33:16.411
which is recognized as such,

00:33:16.619 --> 00:33:20.873
uses it as a way
of expressing their ideas.

00:33:20.999 --> 00:33:24.502
Many people believe that
there is vandalism in graffiti,

00:33:25.003 --> 00:33:27.630
because there’s an appropriation
of public space,

00:33:27.714 --> 00:33:30.967
which is not, in principle,
legitimized.

00:33:31.509 --> 00:33:36.014
The problem is that
there is a whole social, philosophical issue,

00:33:36.055 --> 00:33:38.558
about to whom
that public space belongs.

00:33:38.933 --> 00:33:42.061
In other words, public space
in the urban environment,

00:33:42.186 --> 00:33:44.605
must also be understood
as a common space,

00:33:44.689 --> 00:33:46.149
for those who inhabit it.

00:33:46.274 --> 00:33:50.236
I have an idea
about the city as an artifact,

00:33:51.029 --> 00:33:54.866
which is an artifact,
in our cities, broken down,

00:33:54.949 --> 00:33:58.077
in the sense that it is not
an artifact that works perfectly,

00:33:58.119 --> 00:34:00.538
because society
doesn\'t work that way,

00:34:00.997 --> 00:34:06.252
and it\'s remarkable that in
the most broken down places,

00:34:06.544 --> 00:34:09.547
is where graffiti is most proliferated.

00:34:09.797 --> 00:34:11.966
Many of the street artists

00:34:12.008 --> 00:34:15.678
who today produce the art
that we admire,

00:34:16.429 --> 00:34:19.098
were formed in the streets.

00:34:19.223 --> 00:34:22.435
That is, many of them
did not start in art schools.

00:34:22.643 --> 00:34:24.228
They started in the street.

00:34:24.687 --> 00:34:30.318
And they started through this practice
of taking their looks, their opinions,

00:34:30.568 --> 00:34:34.739
their ideas, their aesthetics,
to the walls.

00:34:35.615 --> 00:34:38.117
We cannot think of one without the other.

00:34:38.367 --> 00:34:40.453
There\'s a school there,
which is the street school.

00:34:47.210 --> 00:34:49.295
For more than 10 years,

00:34:49.629 --> 00:34:53.382
this neighborhood and the next,
my birthplace,

00:34:53.758 --> 00:34:57.011
were my constant field of work.

00:34:57.303 --> 00:35:00.681
The relationship with the locals was everyday.

00:35:00.723 --> 00:35:03.351
There were virtually no permits,
no logistics,

00:35:03.392 --> 00:35:06.604
in certain places
where I painted again and again.

00:35:06.604 --> 00:35:08.689
I wasn’t interested
in taking over the city,

00:35:08.731 --> 00:35:10.483
I painted on the same wall,

00:35:10.775 --> 00:35:12.360
once a week, easily.

00:35:12.860 --> 00:35:14.487
At first it was much more literal,

00:35:14.529 --> 00:35:18.157
I worked with
Buenos Aires idiosyncrasies,

00:35:19.033 --> 00:35:20.785
but then I was interested in using ...

00:35:20.827 --> 00:35:24.455
issues that have more to do
with this idiosyncrasy,

00:35:24.539 --> 00:35:26.457
but without being so explicit.

00:35:26.624 --> 00:35:29.502
Then I started making
certain parallels

00:35:29.627 --> 00:35:32.713
with the popular subcultures
in Buenos Aires.

00:35:32.880 --> 00:35:34.465
And there I got really hooked on ...

00:35:34.549 --> 00:35:38.636
how the \'barra brava\' subculture
works in Buenos Aires,

00:35:38.678 --> 00:35:43.057
and its relationship with sports,
but at the same time with society.

00:35:43.099 --> 00:35:46.269
For me it’s a rather simplified example

00:35:46.310 --> 00:35:48.437
of how the country works in general.

00:35:48.688 --> 00:35:50.648
Taking that little sub-group,

00:35:50.857 --> 00:35:52.942
analyzing it
and working based on it.

00:35:53.442 --> 00:35:56.654
At least that is how
the explicit violence appeared.

00:35:57.446 --> 00:36:00.116
Not to be a violence apologist,

00:36:00.158 --> 00:36:04.036
or take it as a reference,
but to trigger certain ideas

00:36:04.162 --> 00:36:07.123
that for me also represented
my city, and my culture,

00:36:07.248 --> 00:36:09.917
in another way
that isn\'t the typical one.

00:36:11.669 --> 00:36:12.753
From there,

00:36:12.837 --> 00:36:16.507
it was about expanding the same
to other places in Latin America,

00:36:16.757 --> 00:36:19.343
this relationship
of violence ...

00:36:19.510 --> 00:36:22.513
from low and high,
from social differences,

00:36:23.764 --> 00:36:27.476
always related to issues of tension.

00:36:27.685 --> 00:36:30.813
That\'s why there was a lot of symmetry,
many mirrored figures,

00:36:30.897 --> 00:36:33.232
that generated
certain confrontations.

00:36:33.900 --> 00:36:37.486
And well, both the tiger in Mexico,
the Yawar in Peru,

00:36:37.528 --> 00:36:40.239
certain things
that are more native,

00:36:40.364 --> 00:36:44.035
of rituals in which
some violence is involved,

00:36:44.577 --> 00:36:46.329
and I started mixing them,

00:36:46.370 --> 00:36:48.956
taking them as a kickstart,
as a reference,

00:36:49.040 --> 00:36:52.168
for these issues
of social confrontations,

00:36:52.293 --> 00:36:53.461
or of social differences,

00:36:53.544 --> 00:36:56.339
that exist and are so evident
in our Latin America,

00:36:56.631 --> 00:37:00.134
and that speak volumes
about those difficulties in developing.

00:37:00.259 --> 00:37:04.222
So ... it’s strongly related to
how our societies are,

00:37:04.347 --> 00:37:07.558
how they are paired,
and how they confront each other ...

00:37:08.476 --> 00:37:11.395
It began to get a little deeper,
but always along that line.

00:37:14.106 --> 00:37:17.568
In Buenos Aires
I feel that…

00:37:17.652 --> 00:37:20.446
the passerby always
wants to be part of something.

00:37:20.780 --> 00:37:22.740
They want to feel
identified in something.

00:37:23.574 --> 00:37:26.410
Institutions are represented
inside buildings.

00:37:26.744 --> 00:37:31.540
You see the Government House,
it\'s a building that theoretically represents that.

00:37:31.666 --> 00:37:34.919
What space is left
to the passer-by, the public, to ...

00:37:35.086 --> 00:37:37.755
for example,
be against those powers,

00:37:37.797 --> 00:37:41.550
or not be in favor of that kind of thinking,
and be able to say it?

00:37:41.634 --> 00:37:42.927
It\'s the street.

00:37:43.469 --> 00:37:45.012
If there are people who have buildings,

00:37:45.054 --> 00:37:47.390
then there are people
who can also own that space,

00:37:47.473 --> 00:37:49.183
and have it
as their own.

00:37:49.850 --> 00:37:54.146
After a reflection
on how I participate in that space,

00:37:54.647 --> 00:37:57.191
my work became more political,

00:37:57.400 --> 00:38:00.444
maybe because of the fact that
I was more aware

00:38:00.569 --> 00:38:04.198
of what public space represents,
and the responsibility involved.

00:38:05.491 --> 00:38:07.243
I’m not the owner of my murals.

00:38:07.326 --> 00:38:08.286
I don’t sign them.

00:38:08.494 --> 00:38:10.246
I currently don’t sign the murals.

00:38:10.538 --> 00:38:12.790
Also because it makes me feel
that I’m ...

00:38:12.915 --> 00:38:15.835
invading a space
that can also be invaded by anyone.

00:38:17.003 --> 00:38:21.007
It was very interesting for me
trying to work with iconography of ...

00:38:21.340 --> 00:38:24.385
Chinese communism ...
in Argentina,

00:38:25.219 --> 00:38:27.805
with the imaginary of Mao Zedong,
for example.

00:38:28.806 --> 00:38:32.893
Probably not much is known
about Mao Zedong in Argentina.

00:38:33.144 --> 00:38:36.063
But in its variants,
people ...

00:38:36.314 --> 00:38:39.191
reappropriate,
validate or invalidate it.

00:38:39.442 --> 00:38:42.445
So that\'s what I thought
was very interesting to do

00:38:42.570 --> 00:38:44.363
with that kind of mural.

00:38:45.406 --> 00:38:47.533
Being Argentine
intersects ...

00:38:48.367 --> 00:38:50.369
or is identified through
passions.

00:38:50.494 --> 00:38:52.496
So this kind of work,

00:38:52.872 --> 00:38:54.081
what I was doing at that time,

00:38:54.206 --> 00:38:58.336
made me feel that
I moved those neural parts.

00:38:58.461 --> 00:39:01.005
They don\'t identify with communism,

00:39:01.047 --> 00:39:04.133
maybe they identify themselves
with the left of the 70s,

00:39:04.258 --> 00:39:08.304
or with something that pervaded their parents,
or my parents too.

00:39:08.387 --> 00:39:12.308
My parents were also
young activists in the 70s,

00:39:12.391 --> 00:39:15.061
we’re always invaded
by a political issue.

00:39:17.563 --> 00:39:19.857
I get the feeling that
when one walks,

00:39:19.940 --> 00:39:21.359
since one takes the bus,

00:39:21.442 --> 00:39:23.652
and if the bus fare goes up,
it\'s a political issue,

00:39:23.652 --> 00:39:25.613
if electricity goes up,
someone will get angry,

00:39:25.654 --> 00:39:27.156
and they’ll take to the street.

00:39:27.531 --> 00:39:31.494
Spaces that in our memory
are remembered through photos, videos,

00:39:31.535 --> 00:39:35.748
made in those specific contexts,
where people protest.

00:39:36.665 --> 00:39:39.960
There are spaces where we saw a president
being kicked out, leaving in a helicopter.

00:39:40.002 --> 00:39:43.464
In other words, those spaces are
in our memory, in our retina.

00:39:43.881 --> 00:39:46.550
And all of that pervades our being.

00:39:46.634 --> 00:39:50.137
So, since art seems to me
also such an invisible thing,

00:39:51.639 --> 00:39:53.015
like the air itself,

00:39:53.057 --> 00:39:57.061
those things always appear out of nowhere,
like a plane in the sky.

00:40:01.148 --> 00:40:04.026
I try to carry out
anthropological search processes ...

00:40:04.193 --> 00:40:07.154
more ethnological,
symbolic,

00:40:07.905 --> 00:40:09.990
that I find in that same space.

00:40:10.116 --> 00:40:14.286
That is, trying to get
human presence not to exist,

00:40:14.370 --> 00:40:18.457
but rather be reflected
in these objects or symbols.

00:40:18.624 --> 00:40:22.920
For example, I work
painting empty plastic bottles,

00:40:23.337 --> 00:40:26.006
I\'m talking about a product
that is consumed massively,

00:40:26.090 --> 00:40:29.218
a product that has a price,
a design ...

00:40:30.302 --> 00:40:33.806
I realized that with these elements,
we’re talking about politics.

00:40:33.931 --> 00:40:37.435
Or a bell pepper, a tomato,
a security camera,

00:40:37.852 --> 00:40:41.230
those are elements
to modify in society.

00:40:41.272 --> 00:40:43.858
A camera is for monitoring.
Who owns the camera?

00:40:43.983 --> 00:40:47.736
Generally the State, the police
that monitors its own inhabitants.

00:40:48.446 --> 00:40:50.823
The bell pepper too,
its price, how it falls,

00:40:50.948 --> 00:40:52.950
what people consume,

00:40:52.950 --> 00:40:57.621
those are elements that are
totally intersected by a political issue.

00:40:57.705 --> 00:41:01.167
Because they’re political decisions,
they’re thought decisions,

00:41:01.667 --> 00:41:05.880
of theory, marketing,
many things that speak to who we are.

00:41:29.987 --> 00:41:32.198
It’s a cultural tradition in Argentina

00:41:32.198 --> 00:41:34.533
to consider ourselves in crisis.

00:41:35.993 --> 00:41:40.372
What happened was that
unemployment was around 15% or 18%,

00:41:40.456 --> 00:41:44.793
it was the end of the convertibility plan
and the collapse of the neoliberal model.

00:41:52.134 --> 00:41:57.473
Precisely on those days of December 2001,
artists like Buenos Aires Stencil,

00:41:57.556 --> 00:42:01.060
Vómito Attacks ...
Stencil Land, a few months later,

00:42:01.268 --> 00:42:05.314
they started creating stencils,

00:42:05.606 --> 00:42:09.360
on the one hand parodying
capitalism and neoliberalism,

00:42:10.778 --> 00:42:14.031
and longing for the fall
of this whole system,

00:42:14.073 --> 00:42:17.618
that deep down had been
the base and the cause,

00:42:17.701 --> 00:42:20.204
of the fall of the
Argentine economy.

00:42:47.064 --> 00:42:50.776
The stencil, as of 2000,
2001, 2002, 2003,

00:42:51.068 --> 00:42:55.864
took that epigrammatic,
ironic poetics,

00:42:56.073 --> 00:42:58.158
of textual graffiti,

00:42:58.367 --> 00:43:00.953
but turned it into an image.

00:43:01.287 --> 00:43:05.124
It generated that relationship
between the image and the text.

00:43:05.207 --> 00:43:09.003
Because many times it was an image,
but with text underneath.

00:43:09.253 --> 00:43:11.088
So in that relationship,

00:43:11.171 --> 00:43:14.592
a spark was generated,
or a touch of meaning.

00:43:14.800 --> 00:43:17.678
Which made that ironic reading
about reality,

00:43:17.720 --> 00:43:19.722
in relation to the
\"Out with all of them\",

00:43:19.805 --> 00:43:21.015
in relation to banks,

00:43:21.098 --> 00:43:26.437
with the issue of how people were scammed,
regarding their savings,

00:43:26.645 --> 00:43:29.231
and an ironic political reading,

00:43:29.356 --> 00:43:33.861
that tries to separate itself
from the usual political discourse.

00:43:34.111 --> 00:43:36.530
From the usual partisan political discourse.

00:43:37.197 --> 00:43:41.201
The fracture of symbols implies breaking
with those symbols that were imposed on us,

00:43:41.327 --> 00:43:45.122
and what street art does
is to use those symbols,

00:43:45.581 --> 00:43:47.166
seize those symbols,

00:43:47.916 --> 00:43:52.838
and break with the implications
and meanings they impose.

00:43:58.302 --> 00:43:59.637
In 2001,

00:44:00.054 --> 00:44:02.389
I was on the street
two days in a row,

00:44:02.514 --> 00:44:05.309
they kicked my ass,
I was at those marches,

00:44:05.517 --> 00:44:07.227
then I went to a thousand marches,

00:44:07.603 --> 00:44:09.605
and the issue of confrontation
was always there.

00:44:09.647 --> 00:44:12.816
I showed up on a newspaper cover,
me against a policeman, and ...

00:44:13.776 --> 00:44:18.197
And I said: \"Either we keep doing it for real,
or I start painting them.\"

00:44:18.238 --> 00:44:20.741
And that\'s when I started portraying
those kind of images,

00:44:20.866 --> 00:44:22.493
in which I\'m very interested,
to be honest,

00:44:22.618 --> 00:44:24.828
photojournalism and all those things,
I love them.

00:44:25.788 --> 00:44:29.500
I research a lot about all the protests
that are almost everywhere,

00:44:29.500 --> 00:44:31.460
I have thousands of folders,

00:44:31.627 --> 00:44:35.089
lots of fire, which happens often
in Europe, in Greece,

00:44:35.172 --> 00:44:38.592
the protests in those countries,
there are more molotovs.

00:44:38.967 --> 00:44:42.096
I really like being able to move
what I do inside the house, outside,

00:44:42.221 --> 00:44:43.472
pictorially.

00:44:43.514 --> 00:44:47.101
You have another rhythm outside,
you start it and you can\'t spend ...

00:44:47.226 --> 00:44:50.521
twenty days painting a mural, because
you might get there on day 3, and it\'s gone.

00:44:53.649 --> 00:44:55.943
And what I paint are
reflections of what happens.

00:44:56.026 --> 00:44:59.613
Clearly, a picket is a reflection
of ourselves here.

00:44:59.988 --> 00:45:03.450
These are things that one can see,
you go to Palermo, you paint a picket, and ...

00:45:03.659 --> 00:45:06.328
people like it or not,
they don\'t give a damn actually.

00:45:06.829 --> 00:45:09.581
A kid sleeping in the street ...
they just pass by.

00:45:09.665 --> 00:45:11.542
As is the case worldwide,
actually.

00:45:11.625 --> 00:45:13.293
But they are very... Argentinean.

00:45:13.377 --> 00:45:15.838
Some kids sleeping
under a bridge, huffing glue,

00:45:15.921 --> 00:45:18.549
people started looking at it,
as if to say \"Look what a beautiful picture\",

00:45:18.590 --> 00:45:20.217
actually it\'s not
a pretty picture.

00:45:20.300 --> 00:45:23.303
Maybe I painted it
with nice colors, but ...

00:45:23.429 --> 00:45:25.139
it’s still kids
sleeping in the street.

00:45:25.222 --> 00:45:26.515
Something that’s seen every day.

00:45:26.890 --> 00:45:28.767
For me it goes hand in hand,
what I paint,

00:45:28.809 --> 00:45:30.310
a policeman set on fire ...

00:45:30.519 --> 00:45:32.855
with people sleeping on the street,
it\'s all violence.

00:45:47.077 --> 00:45:49.037
People see places and say:

00:45:49.079 --> 00:45:50.873
\"No chance in hell I’d go there,

00:45:50.873 --> 00:45:52.499
because they rob you here ...\"

00:45:52.499 --> 00:45:54.793
Actually, you get there
and nothing happens,

00:45:54.835 --> 00:45:57.796
it\'s not speaking from the outside,
but always going in.

00:46:02.009 --> 00:46:04.845
I’m a teacher
from the Province of Buenos Aires,

00:46:04.845 --> 00:46:09.224
I came to look for work,
no one took shifts in this neighborhood

00:46:09.224 --> 00:46:12.978
Because of the neighborhood’s
stigma as dangerous.

00:46:15.439 --> 00:46:18.358
The project \"Pintó la Isla\"
emerged at this school,

00:46:18.442 --> 00:46:19.985
Isla Maciel\'s School 24,

00:46:20.068 --> 00:46:22.070
considering that the neighborhood
is very close

00:46:22.112 --> 00:46:24.573
to a very touristic area,
such as La Boca, Caminito,

00:46:24.656 --> 00:46:27.034
crossing the creek
we’re on Isla Maciel.

00:46:27.951 --> 00:46:30.496
I got the idea of
putting together a project

00:46:30.579 --> 00:46:34.041
that links the neighborhood
with urban art.

00:46:35.209 --> 00:46:37.753
Nobody helps us,
it\'s a self-driven project,

00:46:37.961 --> 00:46:42.090
we don\'t have help from the state
or the municipality, in terms of materials,

00:46:42.674 --> 00:46:45.052
so everything that is done,
is done in a self-managed way.

00:46:45.844 --> 00:46:49.056
So I believe that
one starts embodying that,

00:46:49.097 --> 00:46:51.308
and takes care of it and protects it
as if it were a child.

00:46:54.645 --> 00:46:59.316
Gerardo put on a backpack,
and carries it everywhere,

00:46:59.817 --> 00:47:03.195
Pure love. What Gerardo
did here is unbelievable.

00:47:03.487 --> 00:47:05.823
He used to call people to paint,

00:47:06.031 --> 00:47:08.992
and now people call him
to come here to paint.

00:47:11.453 --> 00:47:13.372
You do this out of love.

00:47:13.497 --> 00:47:17.668
Painting in a neighborhood like that,
is more to share with neighbors,

00:47:18.502 --> 00:47:21.630
I come here, I know a couple of people,
and I really like it.

00:47:29.137 --> 00:47:32.724
I believe that on Isla Maciel,
the real transformation of the project

00:47:32.850 --> 00:47:37.521
has to do with the neighbors,
and also kids who are from the neighborhood,

00:47:37.646 --> 00:47:39.857
they were ashamed, maybe

00:47:40.023 --> 00:47:43.068
to say where they came from,
when looking for a job,

00:47:43.151 --> 00:47:46.071
today they\'re proud of the neighborhood,
and they can say it,

00:47:46.154 --> 00:47:49.449
“I live on Isla Maciel”, because I like
what’s happening in the neighborhood.

00:48:06.174 --> 00:48:09.595
I think the case of La Boca,
in my opinion, from what I know,

00:48:09.636 --> 00:48:11.763
it’s a very paradigmatic case.

00:48:12.222 --> 00:48:16.602
In the sense of, on the one hand,
a very strong neighborhood identity,

00:48:16.602 --> 00:48:19.438
but at the same time,
that identity that’s very associated

00:48:19.646 --> 00:48:22.900
with a series of colors and shapes,

00:48:22.983 --> 00:48:26.403
to groups that do it,
artists who promote it ...

00:48:26.862 --> 00:48:29.615
For many years,

00:48:29.740 --> 00:48:34.703
after the port closed, and the neighborhood
ran out of commercial activity,

00:48:34.828 --> 00:48:39.875
those who still had some money to speculate
turned to buying property,

00:48:40.125 --> 00:48:43.086
in a super depreciated neighborhood

00:48:43.503 --> 00:48:46.840
With the promise that some time later
a development pole would be established there,

00:48:46.924 --> 00:48:49.301
that would revalue
the price of land.

00:48:49.593 --> 00:48:51.970
They proposed bringing
that aesthetic from outside,

00:48:52.179 --> 00:48:55.057
implementing it in any context,
they don\'t care about anything,

00:48:55.140 --> 00:48:56.767
that is, they paint in La Boca,

00:48:56.892 --> 00:49:00.729
and they take away all the social,
political, economic context

00:49:00.938 --> 00:49:03.565
of cultural identity
that the neighborhood has,

00:49:03.815 --> 00:49:06.234
to transform it into an Amsterdam.

00:49:06.485 --> 00:49:10.280
I mean, I\'m fine with Amsterdam,
but the truth is that I live in La Boca.

00:49:25.671 --> 00:49:29.049
My connection to public space
began to get lost

00:49:29.132 --> 00:49:34.680
when this megalomania that generated
all this new movement,

00:49:34.721 --> 00:49:37.099
became more of a show.

00:49:37.224 --> 00:49:39.726
On the one hand, it allows you to create
another type of work,

00:49:39.810 --> 00:49:45.148
and on the other hand, you are contradicting
certain positions that were originally ...

00:49:45.273 --> 00:49:49.111
more committed to the place,
with a social transformation, or of space,

00:49:49.236 --> 00:49:51.405
or link
with society.

00:49:51.530 --> 00:49:55.951
And suddenly you became
a real estate transformation tool.

00:49:56.410 --> 00:50:00.914
That affected me a lot, too,
on how I looked at the jobs.

00:50:01.498 --> 00:50:04.376
I had to live it,
to experience it.

00:50:04.793 --> 00:50:07.671
It allowed me to do a lot of things,
and at the same time,

00:50:08.171 --> 00:50:09.923
want to get away
from many others.

00:50:10.048 --> 00:50:13.343
They cancel out your message,
they occupy the public spaces,

00:50:13.635 --> 00:50:16.722
and they sell you
an empty muralism.

00:50:17.681 --> 00:50:19.224
And at the same time,

00:50:19.391 --> 00:50:22.019
after a while they erase them,
and they do another one.

00:50:22.436 --> 00:50:26.440
They themselves are the ones
who articulate, who command,

00:50:26.523 --> 00:50:30.777
and who order public space
according to their convenience.

00:50:34.740 --> 00:50:37.325
There is a reality,
there is a world in which we live,

00:50:37.534 --> 00:50:41.830
that recodes whatever has power,
to use it for your benefit,

00:50:42.080 --> 00:50:44.666
because it has the possibility
of being used against you,

00:50:44.708 --> 00:50:46.626
and it will always be like that.

00:50:46.793 --> 00:50:50.922
And sometimes I feel that ...
the fear exists,

00:50:51.006 --> 00:50:55.135
that it weakens the movement, and ...

00:50:55.343 --> 00:50:59.264
I think urban art is a bit more powerful ...

00:50:59.306 --> 00:51:01.725
than a brand campaign.

00:51:01.892 --> 00:51:05.395
It’s responding to a much more
fundamental need of society.

00:51:05.562 --> 00:51:07.272
Street art is in vogue now.

00:51:07.481 --> 00:51:09.691
Otherwise, the government
wouldn’t pay people to paint.

00:51:10.442 --> 00:51:12.944
They see that there’s buzz in it,
and they use it.

00:51:13.153 --> 00:51:15.864
In a couple of years it will be something else,
and there will be nothing for us, zero.

00:51:16.198 --> 00:51:18.992
That\'s how it is, those of us who paint for real,
we\'ll always be painting.

00:51:19.076 --> 00:51:20.786
The others,
do something else, friend.

00:51:21.244 --> 00:51:24.289
And well, it\'s a process.
They\'re going to do it to me,

00:51:24.998 --> 00:51:26.249
or to someone else.

00:51:26.291 --> 00:51:29.920
We ourselves, sharing
this space where we’re talking,

00:51:30.170 --> 00:51:33.423
we\'ve painted around here,
and the rent has increased as well.

00:51:33.590 --> 00:51:36.468
That is, we have
shot ourselves in the feet.

00:51:39.846 --> 00:51:43.809
If we start to lose the sense
of why we paint murals,

00:51:44.017 --> 00:51:45.268
we\'re losing.

00:51:45.811 --> 00:51:48.814
In short,
what will end up happening,

00:51:48.897 --> 00:51:51.441
is that the mural
will be emptied of content.

00:51:51.733 --> 00:51:55.070
They won’t serve
as a pedagogical context,

00:51:55.403 --> 00:51:56.905
to collective memory.