Graffiti

It's not hard to notice that there is an unusually large amount of graffiti in Barcelona. It matches the tattoos everyone seems to have, I suppose. Almost all shops have the same thing my kitchen has: a metal garage type door that covers the glass door entrance. This provides a convenient canvas, apparently. I've seen graffiti on every sprayable surface there is. At least I can say I've mostly seen either professional graffiti, or someone trying to sloppily write their name. I have not come across anything really offensive. What I have seen that is troubling is spray paint on buildings that are hundreds of years old. Luckily, I haven't seen too much of that. Since this artwork is something I've come to find completely embedded in the culture here, I figured I'd share it with you.

If you step out of my building and look right, you see this, without taking a step.


This one is about 10 seconds away.


The following are on the doors of a musical instrument store called New Phono. It's been around for 170 years! The owners, like so many Barcelonans, are on vacation for the month of August. As soon as they reopen, I look forward to visiting them, especially for the guitars!.




The following are before and after shots of the same places. They each only open for dinner, around 9. The before shot is taken during the day, when it's closed and covered in graffiti, and looks like nothing. The after shots were taking at around 11 pm, and reveal what simple graffiti can cover up.





You clearly can't tell by this photo, but I got the best chicken shwarma here, for a ridiculously cheap price!



This looks like a bit of combination graffiti. I think store owners have their walls covered with professional graffiti, in hopes of discouraging vandalism. It looks like it didn't work out so well in this case.


This is what was sad to see: vandalism on buildings hundreds of years old. Big, beautiful old doors with horrible little splots of spray paint. Such disrespect.


This is interesting. This building has no name on it. But the doors are wide open, presenting a big beautiful staircase. There was no one waiting on the door, so no one to ask. It's odd, but it is a rather common thing to see oddities here.