Bogotá's New Megamurals

Recently, the city sponsored these huge murals on warehouse and factory walls in the otherwise very gray and gritty Puente Aranda neighborhood. The murals, which line two streets near the Carrera 53 Transmilenio station - and which we visited during a street art bike tour - transformed the neighborhood's atmosphere.

A graffiti artist friend told me that because Mayor Peñalosa is disliked by the artists' community, some of them did only their second-best work here. But the paintings looked fine to me!

Ironically, however, the neighborhood residents walking by the murals ignored them, perhaps because they passed by every day. And these are yet another example of Bogotá's best street art - like those beside the bullfighting stadium and the ones behind the Central Cemetery - located in out-of-the-way sites where few people see them, unless they go out of their way.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Changing of the Art on Calle 26

A healthy food mural across from Parque del Renacimiento, by Lesivo.

If there's one thing we know, it's that Bogotá has too many parks, police, soup kitchens and schoolbooks - and that's why the city is spending public money painting street art where there already is great street art.

Here are the old murals on Calle 26, sponsored by the city between about the Cementerio Central and the Universidad Nacional.

Street art is great, but Calle 26 had lots of it already.

Why not paint somewhere else, where there isn't great art already?

An indigenous woman, painted by a Peruvian graffiti crew.

A jaguar, icon of Colombia's wildlife, and a coal miner, by Toxicomano. 

The image of the coal miner, incidentally, comes from a famous photo of a West Virginian miner who died young from black lung disease. The mural, by Toxicomano, declared that 'Water is worth more than gold.' Illegal gold mines have destroyed innumerable rivers and poisoned many people, particularly on Colombia's Pacific Coast.

The assassinated comedian Jaime Garzon, dressed as a maid, by MAL.

'Land, peace and bread.' A tribute to the 1917 Russian Revolution.

A woman and child, a few blocks from the Universidad Nacional, by a graffiti crew from Lima, Peru.

Suffering? But she's smiling! A bent over woman appeared to be communing with nature, also by a Peruvian crew.

And now they're going, going, gone....

If they were determined to spend the city's budget on more murals, then why not paint empty walls, of which Bogotá has many???

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Stupid Solution

Jaime Garzón's mural today.

And back when it was complete.

The mural on Calle 26 of assassinated comedian Jaime Garzón has become one of Bogotá's most iconic. And now it's missing a chunk.

It turns out that the owner of one of the homes behind the mural had objected to the backside of her rear wall being painted over - even tho she could not see it. The woman went to court, and won. Yesterday, a city painter eliminated the offending art from the backside of her rear wall.

I hope she's satisfied now that a corner of the offending mural of the martyred comic, who was shot near here in August 1999, has been eliminated. Perhaps her home feels more comfortable. Unfortunately, the thousands of people who pass the mural every will miss something too.

I hope she's happy. A note on the painted-over wall prohibits painting here. But isn't that what blank walls are for?

This absurd solution, which benefits nobody and hurts many, might have appealed to a comedian such as Garzón. In contrast, the woman who sued apparently lacks all sense of humor.

Now, why doesn't someone sue the city to make it do something with the huge empty lot in front of the mural? Homes and businesses here were demolished during construction of the 26th Street TransMilenio line a few years ago, but the empty lots are still there being nothing more than empty lots.

And where are the complaints about the trashy field?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Toxicomano's Massive Mural

Irreverent, mysterious, defiant, playful, satirical - the Toxicomano group of grafiteros is turning the wall of a parking garage on 20th Street just off of Carrera 4 into what may be Bogotá's largest mural.

This face, stenciled on
walls across Bogotá, belongs
to a friend of the
Toxicomano guys. 

The group of four painters, all of whom work in art-related professions like photography and graphic design, didn't ask permission to paint the wall, but the neighbors don't appear to mind. Their signatures, like Toxicomano and Lesivo, are on buildings all over Bogota, where their work brightens up an otherwise drab cement cityscape. And they also make you think with their satire and generally leftist, anti-establishment, anti-capitalist commentaries.

Their names - Toxicomano and Lesivo, are defiant labels showing off their flouting of societal norms. 'Toxicomano' seems to mean something like 'toxic hand,' and 'Lesivo' something like 'lesion.' But they are nice guys. And if they flout the rules, they do so in a constructive way.

Bogotá has a lively graffiti culture, including lots of political graffiti, particularly in the National University.

The newly decorated block of Calle 20.

Painting meaningless letters beside the image of Jose, the Rapper of La Jimenez. 

One of the grafiteros told me this image was inspired by reports that in the poor Choco region, poor people still earn a few pesos by carrying the wealthy on their backs. 

Flying birds. 

'Exploitation ruins life.' 

Money, money, money, man. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours, which offers graffiti tours.