Street Art and good humor in Lagunillas
BEHIND THE PLAZA DE LA MERCED
When this neighborhood is mentioned in a creative space such as La Térmica or Artsenal (on Muelle Uno), the most logical thing is to think that it is a remote suburb. And yet, the first surprise is discovering that it is located in a central location , right behind some of the city's cultural icons. Hence, many neighbors cry out to heaven for the little that has been done for this neighborhood despite being a few meters from the cervantes theater (the Kodak Theater of the Film Festival), of the house where Picasso was born or the monumental Plaza de la Merced . For tourist purposes, this means that you don't have to go all the way to northern Beijing to come across the murals and graffiti that adorn its walls. In addition, the brand new opening of the Merced gastromarket, a space into which some of the streets of Lagunillas lead, brings an enjoyable and modern epicenter where to eat the province and part of the foreigner . In summary: there is no excuse.
Mercado de la Merced: the epicenter enjoy
TWO INITIATIVES THAT COME TOGETHER
The starting point is the gradual impoverishment of the neighborhood due to its lack of definition. At the end of the 20th century, it was the protagonist of a new urban plan that consisted of tearing down the low houses and building a modern and tourist area. However, the project failed and the only consequence was the proliferation of abandoned lots and houses that the local government had bought and could not maintain. In this situation the neighbors reacted and the first great protagonist of this story appeared.
Miguel Angel Chamorro , a neighborhood artist, he was terrified because the girls did not want to be princesses, it is that they directly aspired to be Belén Esteban . It was not so much a lack of job opportunities, but a cultural one that did not allow them to dream of something more than a show business life unattainable by any other means than that of the tronista. His reaction became the association Fantasy in Lagunillas that organized workshops so that the youngest could find an escape route in art. As a result of its success, the Hope Square , a street car park converted into a basketball court and meeting space, and Calle Pinillos, an alley painted with the innocent and sympathetic pencils of the youngest minds.
Plaza Esperanza is synonymous with art and play
The other great architect of this cultural revolution was a blackboard located in Vital Aza street . In it, Concha Rodríguez wrote daily a nice phrase with which to motivate your neighbors . To Dita Segura, an artist trained at the San Telmo school , she liked it so much that she joined the bandwagon and encouraged those words to become street art and hope that she was the curator and instigator of this outdoor exhibition, attracting local graffiti artists. That was how Concha created the association The future is very Grease she after recycling a poster of the famous musical that had been performed nights ago at the Cervantes. This space became a lung of freedom to unleash the old demands of the neighborhood and thus the icon that would sum it all up was born. The Cristo de los Solares and the Virgen del Descampao, the work of the Zaragoza artist Doger, rose as the definitive mural in which to cry out against the abandonment of neighborhoods without a brotherhood. Sometimes, its promoters pose with capirotes to multiply sarcasm and protest.
Don't try to please everyone...
GRAFFITI CUSTOMS
Doger himself, José Luis BogArt, Dadi Dreucol, Onze or Lalone have been responsible for turning protest into colors and colors into urban landscapes of which the neighborhood is proud. Some neighbors, asked about what they think of so much art, answer that they had never been more rooted and happy with their streets. A cathartic effect that has an explanation beyond the chromatic joy: the murals speak of themselves.
Local heroes conquer space like the ill-fated Pepito Vargas
The route starts at Huerto del Conde street , where some version of Guernika accompanies the ladies to the market. Here is the first example of the great feature of these graffiti: customs and local heroes in the form of a tribute to the ill-fated Pepito Vargas , a dancer who had accompanied figures such as Lola Flores, Concha Piquer or Camarón. In the coquettish artery that gives its name to the neighborhood, Lagunillas, hypnotizes the torn song in the form of Eduardo 'El Chamorra' , a singer who came to live his glory years doing gigs on the Costa del Sol but drug addiction led him to beg with art. Or what is the same, to sing his everlasting Bartender of Cuba on the terraces of tourists , which earned him a love-hate gap (due to his insistence) among the city's hoteliers. For him this street tribute in the Parnassus of everyday life.
This other Guernika accompanies the ladies to the market in Lagunillas
A little further on, on some cement terraces that dream of being a park, appears the powerful portrait of La Caneta , a singer who She started as a child bowling in the mythical tavern 'El Pimpi' and that she ended up conquering the best tablaos in Madrid. Along the way, on traverses that have no name, any wall is good to sing to freedom and portray anonymous faces and distant paradises. Good old Pepe, for example, They have painted a mermaid and a seascape next to his bar so that he does not miss the time when he was a sailor . Carmen, a lady who walks with her head in another world, every day she recovers her pride and some of her conscience when she sees the impressive portrait of her in the Ana Bernal alley . Gossips say that the old woman scratches the cars that park in front of her face and that they do not let her look at each other face to face with total naturalness. Other icons of the neighborhood, such as the painting that paid tribute to 'Happy Mocito', have been erased by the works that, sometimes, appear without much conviction.
Bartender from Cuba... Lagunillas version
Further up, in Lagunillas itself, the hope square stands as the true museum in which the Spanish joke is mixed, with murals dedicated to characters like El Parrita (the first man to walk around Malaga with a Biscuter), with the works that the youngest dare to paint. And when they don't, a basketball court fills their spare time. Nothing remains of that vacant lot, a neighborhood expropriation that everyone signs with a request: "That the city council does not bother".
'El Parrita' in Lagunillas
Probably the greatest mural and creative psychedelia is found on Vital Aza Street. The fact that the blackboard The future is very Grease keep hanging next to your foundation has made the creative madness expand concentrically . Here the balconies are populated by curious creatures and the houses see the lines of colors grow like vines up to the roofs. Among all of them shines, in the mother house of this chaos, Lagunilla Von Bismark, a rag doll created as a deity that protects and watches over the neighborhood and before whom he does not make the sign of the cross. Some graffiti on this street and its parallels react directly against Soho itself and parody works such as ROA's Chameleon with happier, Malaga versions.
Lagoon is waiting for you
IN SEARCH OF DOMESTICATION
But it is not all weather and pavement in Lagunillas. Browsing around the association 'El futuro está muy Grease', sneaking into the La Bici Guapa second-hand store or striking up a conversation at the Cosmonauta is part of the liturgy. In the latter, Matías and other artists coexist in a space born with the intention of being a creative coworking where, d occassionally, a neighbor shows up asking for any material or tool . Harmless street parties are held around this, demonstrating that here, as long as the basic rules are respected, authority or a whip is not necessary. Matías himself, if asked, attends to anyone and talks about his future project: a multidisciplinary room to continue with the initiative of Miguel Ángel Chamorro and put future generations on track with art, theater and dance. His name will be the Versatile.
Other essential spaces are the bar Camborias , an evening and night universe in which the lives of parishioners, tourists and guests are brought to life with concerts and cultural activities of all kinds. Y at her back door, a gypsy moves her wrists in a mural that condenses the art of Lagunillas . A neighborhood that has become an inexhaustible source of outdoor canvases and that gives the feeling of being eternal. For now, some tourist trend hunter is already starting to offer guided tours before it catches on and gentrification capitalizes on it all . Meanwhile, let's enjoy this blessed uncensored madness just a few meters from where Pablo Picasso was born.
Art in motion in Las Camborias