This piece is an example of graffiti artists using stencils. It was really big and I couldn’t get a picture of it as a whole, but here are bits and pieces of it.
This piece was done by my favorite artists Jaz. It has life (on the left) and death (on the right) in it and shows that they are both connected with the three lines in the middle.
This artist’s name is Nerf. I thought that this piece was really cool because he did this free hand, without using rulers. The lines are all perfect!
This piece is done by a woman, who is the only well known woman graffiti artist here. She tries not to be too cutesy, but can’t help it. Whenever you see her work, you just can’t help but smile.
This piece is also done by Jaz. It’s a lot cooler to see in person because it’s so big! If you look at my previous post, I’m standing in between the two bears, for a better perspective of the size.
This piece is actually a memorial that is a political piece. It shows that the law is as slow as a snail and a turtle, is full of rats, and that the law is blind and sleeping. We drove by it, so I didn’t hear the whole story about why it was put there. I thought it was a really interesting piece though.
This is the last piece we saw that day. It’s a memorial piece that is referring to the dark time period when the country was ruled by a dictatorship (during the "Dirty War"). This young man was abducted and murdered by the dictatorship, he was 22 years old when this happened, one year younger than me. During the dictatorship, thousands of people “disappeared” (either abducted or murdered). Many of the younger children were given to other people to be raised. The grandmothers and the mothers (if they were not murdered) would gather together in Plaza de Mayo (where the president’s house is) and search for their missing children. They couldn’t stand still because it would be to obvious that they were organizing something that was against the dictatorship, so they would walk, circling and circling, around Plaza de Mayo. If a woman was searching for her missing child(ren), she would wear a scarf a certain way. Today, their symbol is a scarf and they still meet every Thursday at Plaza de Mayo. (All of this is from memory from the tour, forgive me if some of the details are not perfect). Lost children are still being found today. As little as 3 weeks ago, a grandmother found one of the missing children. After the dictatorship, there was a free blood test offered for children to test and see if their parents were their real parents, but many people refused to take it because they didn’t want to find out the truth, if their parents were not truly their parents. I kind of understand that, but that would just be really crazy if the people in your life you thought were your parents were not. (One of my friends told me this, so take it as you may. I just think the whole thing is just nuts).
Anyways, back to the picture. Each individual square was painted by a different family member or friend of Cristian. On the bottom right, the messy one, was painted by his three year old niece (so precious!). As you can see, someone had spay painted a few tags over this memorial. The graffiti “artist” who did this was very upset because the people who did this mural put it on top of something he did, so to get them back he vandalized this piece. He had no idea who this guy was, why he was so important, and what it represented. The community was very upset (rightfully so) and tracked him down. They asked him why he did it, and then they told him what it represented. It’s not there to only represent this one injustice, but all of the injustices that occurred during the dictatorship. The boy felt terrible, and apologized to the family, friends, and artist profusely. Everything is ok today, but it’s still sad to look at this piece, with all it’s meaning, and it be vandalized.
Until Next Time,
Liz
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