After a cozy weekend with my big, fat, Italo-French family, it was time to hit the city and explore the street art of Paris. I opted for the 13th district, where some great murals have just been added to an already outstanding collection of public art to inaugurate the open-air street art museum “Boulevard Paris 13”, a project curated by Itinerrance gallery.
Everybody seems to think that street art in Berlin is dead and undoubtedly the city isn’t anymore the ultimate destination for graffiti writers and all kinds of artists.
However, Berlin is home to two of the most popular graffiti crews worldwide (1UP and Berlin Kidz), a quirky Museum of Stickers and the art-gallery-turned-street-art-museum Urban Nation Berlin.
Urban Nation is responsible for the majority of urban art in the city, so our Berlin street art tour couldn’t start anywhere else than from their HQs on Bulowstrasse.
[UPDATE 2018: At last, I visited Urban Nation, read more below!]
As one more year passed by, I found myself thinking about my happiest moments from 2016 and –undoubtedly- attending the legendary Nuart street art festival in Stavanger (Norway) was one of them. Apart from a couple of interviews (with Axel Void and Henrik Uldalen), I still haven’t told you anything about that amazing experience, although you might have seen my round-up of outdoor and indoor murals and my recap of Nuart Plus academic conferences on I Support Street Art, the website I was representing at the festival. So I guess it’s about time I shared what my favourite walls in Stavanger are, not just from last year’s edition of this independent festival, but since its very beginning back in 2001, when Martyn Reed founded one of the pioneering events dedicated to everything urban and public art, which –since then- has been breaking new ground in the street art scene worldwide.
When I saw Bordalo II’s stunning racoon in Belem, my first thought was ‘where did he find all those pieces of trash?’
Little did I know that soon I was going to regret that wonder, while I was getting to know how difficult it can be to get some pieces of garbage to hang on a wall.
Because yes, this time, I was Bordalo II’s trash-buddy. And it was crazy. ☺
It goes without saying that I picked Lisbon as my summer destination for its street art scene. Lisbon City Council has pioneered an active role for public art in its drive for urban renewal, so it’s no wonder that the Portuguese capital is more colorful and artsy than other European towns. As usual, graffiti hunting allowed me to discover some of the most creative outskirts in Lisbon and get to know the town beyond its touristy city center, confirming that ‘street art tourism’ might be the best way to explore a destination, or at least it works for me.