BARCELONA, URBAN ART!

Are you an art lover?

Street art has been around since the 90’s. This type of urban art emerged in the suburbs, but now it has spread to the big cities and their metropolitan areas like Barcelona. Now it can also be called Post-Graffiti. This term encompasses many styles and techniques: graffiti, stencils, posters, stickers, murals… The artists who practice this art use ingenuity to choose unusual spaces. Usually, these works have a high ideological content; they make fun of politics and morals, and most of this art is free of charge!

Did you know that Barcelona is an important focus of this type of art?

From Casa Jam we propose you to be a creative tourist and get to know Barcelona through its street art. Most of the works are located in the Gothic Quarter and Poblenou, but there are also works in the Eixample and Sant Martí neighborhoods. Here is a map with all the works you can find. At the Guide of Urban Art in Barcelona you can find more than 40 artists, each with their own style, and a total of 177 works. And if you like to travel, I am sure you will recognize many of these paintings, as these artists have left their mark all over Europe.

Recommended artist: Alberto de Blobs 😉

If after this tour, you have been captivated by urban art, here is a list of documentary films that talk about it. Many of them document the life of their authors, some do not reveal their identity, others are fictional recreations of what urban art is all about.

Style Wars (1983) focuses on the birth of urban art and underground culture in New York in the 70s and 80s.
Bomb it (2007) filmed by Jon Reiss. It also talks about its origins and focuses on the cities of New York, London, Cape Town, Paris, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Berlin and São Paulo.

Girl Power (2016) a documentary film by an urban artist of Czech origin and shows the role of women in the world of graffiti.

Basquiat (1996), talks about the life of Jean-Michel Basquiat, he went from being a vagabond artist to a famous artist admired by Andy Warhol.

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010), a documentary film with fictional parts. It tells us how the Frenchman Thierry Guetta ends up meeting Banksy, a great urban art artist.