Thousands of travellers get to Madrid in a daily way. Most of them visit the historical landmarks around the city center, but few others show their interest in the alternative parts. That’s why we prepared this street art walk!
Those who love graffiti and urban art may find this brief street art Madrid map interesting. These are the districts that we will cover:
- Malasaña, the hipster and bohemian area close to Tribunal metro.
- Lavapiés, the most multicultural district in town.
NSN997, discovering the Italian flavour in the street art walk.
Michelangelo Duerama, Francesco Minopoli and Roberto Norelli are NSN997, a crew we added to the street art walk, whose name stands for “New style from Napoli since 1997”.
These three Italian friends started on the graffiti culture when they were just teenagers. They have travelled around the world painting, until they have finally reunited in the Spanish capital, where they currently live.
A “Positive Pattern” for each illustration
Their style could be defined as iconic art as its main component is a happy and empathetic society who often share yellow/black/white objects, or words.
The idea is to create a better world through their art, integrating the people who live within the vicinity where they were invited to paint. Among other locations in Madrid, you may find their artworks in:
- Pinta Malasaña festival,
- CALLE Lavapiés,
- Muros Tabacalera (Calle Miguel Servet)
Insider details told about them in the street art walk.
What the majority of the open audience may not know, is that NSN997 fights for social integration. They regularly collaborate with artistic projects which focus on social development.
“Mi barrio es mi equipo” (my neighborhood, my team) was a cultural event which approached the street art/graffiti cultures to neighbors living around Caño Roto, a working class district in Madrid’s southbounds.
In order to elaborate & design the patterns used during the activity, NSN997 walked around the area and found a wall used by kids to play football. Hence the idea of teamwork.
Colectivo Licuado, Uruguayan pride
These Uruguayan duo became a must in our street art walk last 2019. Colectivo Licuado was created by Florencia Durán y Camilo Nuñez, known in the artistic South American circuit as Fitz and Theic Licuado.
They started making art at Montevideo University. Seems like their motto was to look at all the amazing art they could find in Montevideo’s streets, and luckily for us they painted in Madrid!
Realism and feminism in their artworks
During the street art tour we develop in Lavapies, we get to see a couple of pieces created by these two artists, either in a solo or as a crew.
It’s true that sometimes is hard to differentiate them as they both have a very united style, inspired by realism, but these are the topics usually referred in their artworks:
- Raising awareness on people,
- Women social rights and equity,
- Mythology and classic art.
Why do we offer a street art walk around Lavapiés?
There exists an interesting outdoor events which takes place every year in the neighborhood. CALLE Lavapies festival gave these artists the opportunity to paint a street art wall in Calle del Amparo, 77.
It was during its 2019 edition when they painted a Geisha. Did you know that Colectivo Licuado investigates and combines the culture and tradition of a particular environment, with their own aesthetics?
Licuado means ‘smoothie’ in English language, a mixture of things that they want to share with other people.
Ze Carrion, street art artist from Carabanchel, Madrid.
Similarly to what happens with NSN997, Ze Carrion has observed the great potential of Madrid street, contemporary and modern art.
Ze works as an art teacher in a semi-public high school, while creating canvases for private collectors and art investors. He also commissions artistic requests for businesses (mostly restaurants).
Taking that into account, he creates unique canvases to talk about the problems existing in our society:
- Refugees hunger & death,
- Women equal rights & sexual abuse,
- Catalonian vs. Spain conflict.
Supporting the local talent in our street art walk.
Due to common interests, we have recently started to collaborate with Ze Carrion in the street art walk & graffiti workshops in Madrid .
From time to time he leads our experiences, as his English language skills are appropriate for what our guests demand. Could there be a better representative for Cooltourspain?
Another reason why we added him to Cooltourspain’s team members is because of his not politically correct artistic point of view!
Where could you find Ze Carrion’s creativity?
This special version of the ‘Last Supper’ features a unique criteria. Being able to reproduce what his feelings lead him to do. As a result, this was the new version of this classic portrait:
- He painted an African-american female version of Jesus.
- The apostles were substituted by trans-gender people.
- They are not eating bread and drinking wine, but eating pizza!
Because of the popularity that this artwork had in our street art walk, we usually suggest our guests to try the traditional pizzas elaborated at this restaurant located in Calle Embajadores, 28.
Our opinion about the street art walk
Cooltourspain was born in 2016 with the aim of showing the Spanish capital city in a different way, developing street art walks or graffiti workshops.
The majority of our urban art tours have a nice ending, with guests congratulating us for our work, but there’s been certain situations which really discomfort us. Please check:
The first one came last Autumn. Local people shouted at us “Tourists go home!, while working. Why do people have to be rude to our guests? Are they doing anything to harm them?
Our guides also had to experience another unfortunate situation. It was during an explanation in front of Okudart’s artwork, when a 50 years old lady approached the students’ group and started to complain that it was because of their fault that her rent had increased!
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