2007-12. Urban Art: Graffiti and Murals
Guatemala City, Guatemala.
December 17, 2007.
Issues: Historic Memory / Art / Society
Murals and Text: H.I.J.O.S. Guatemala
Photography and Translation Sp-Eng: MiMundo.org
Guatemalan society has been conditioned to receive art in conventional ways, such as galleries and museums. Nevertheless, urban graffiti reaches the conventional masses on the streets, in their own life stages and in truly unexpected ways.We could talk about the birth of graffiti as an art form, taking a quick look at New York City, in addition to Paris, where it was also bred. But today, as we seek to vindicate the history of national graffiti we also encounter ourselves within the history of our own people.
Our grandmothers have more than once recounted how our forefathers learned in childhood to write words such as LIBERTY along the walls of Bolivar Avenue using coal as markers during the mobilizations against the military regime of Ydigoras Fuentes. Decades later, such words would transform into WE ARE HUNGRY along the fences which line Petapa Avenue, yet this time written with brushes and paint. A comrade once described the walls as the people’s newspaper, and for an extended period of time, urban graffiti served as a space which provided political education and a way to vindicate the most heartfelt needs of the masses.
Today, graffiti has evolved from the original written slogans to elaborate works exposing diverse characters, poetic texts, varied colors, using a combination of methods including brushes, paint, spray cans, as well as the occasional: “Light it up brother! With a lighter though!”
Without a doubt, both the quantity and quality of crews which use this method of expression on the walls of our city have grown, though with different intentions with regards to impact – all open to the general public.
Some, however, have an ulterior vision and talk of “legal graffiti”, or “gallery graffiti”. Nevertheless, to expose this art form in such way means to extract it from the streets, from its natural social context. Hence, by doing so, people who adhere to this vision are ripping out the same spirit which gave it birth and are therefore condemning it to the exclusivity of the elites, where the only legal tags would then be Novella, Castillo, Garcia or Gutierrez [some of the main oligarchic families in Guatemala].
To H.I.J.O.S., Urban Graffiti remains highly subversive by nature, as it is an assault against private property, or better stated, against the private wall.
And just in case you wonder about our constant vindication regarding historic memory, it just happens that graffiti art finds itself precisely within our deepest ancestral memory. We ask: who didn’t scribble his or her own ideas all over the walls as a child?
Why do you become so upset if I convey my inner shout on “your wall”, if the rich, with their armies, have stained our history with blood?-H.I.J.O.S.
(Acronym for: Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice, against Forgetfulness and Silence)
Versión en español aquí.
hola
hablas ingles?
do you know any way of contacting some of these graffiti writers in guatemala?