Upon arriving in Spain, I took the Renfe train from Madrid to Salamanca, where I’m studying in the Universidad de Salamanca. The train itself was pretty reminiscent of a typical Amtrak coach. The train station reminded me of Boston’s South Station, and really, I didn’t notice anything that struck me as distinctly “Spanish,” other than the different language, of course. While making my journey to Salamanca, however, I noticed something that really piqued my interest: graffiti. Spanish graffiti culture is complicated, as calls for independence of autonomous regions are interspersed with love letters and vulgar English phrases, all sprawled along the cityscape. This phenomena, is not only complex, but also pervasive and highly visible as one walks along streets in Basque Country, Castile y Leon, and Madrid. All in all, the street art world of Spain is an interesting microcosm of Spanish culture as a whole, vibrant and colorful, but also tinged with deep anger at problems that lie just below the surface.
The Renfe train, which crisscrosses the many autonomous regions of Spain from the fields of Castile y Leon to the mountains of the Basque country, has one constant: the spray-painted words and pictures that adorn the tracks. Most of the work on the train lines is lighthearted and colorful, with the seemingly most common additions being peoples’ names and English curse words. The considerable presence of graffiti continues in Salamanca, where certain artists have clearly divided up old and new cities, marking their territories. It’s actually rather jarring to see an artist’s name, splashed in gaudy colors, on a historical, sixteenth century sandstone building, but it is fairly commonplace. This, like some other graffiti, serves a purely aesthetic and superficial purpose, but the culture itself is actually much older and more complex.
Painting public walls is certainly not new to Spain, or Salamanca. Some of the most deep-rooted, communal traditions of the city actually involve urban artwork. Visible upon many of the walls of the old city of Salamanca are red letters, painted in a gothic font. For centuries, upon completing their education at the University of Salamanca, students have painted their names on the walls of the school. Even at the oldest university in Spain, street art is intertwined with culture and community. That’s part of what makes the urban art scene in Spain so unique: it is linked not only to recent counterculture movements, but also to the very history of Spain itself. In the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca, there is a bust of the former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Every month, or so, Franco is doused in bright red paint by some unnamed and unseen defacer. That is a far more powerful statement than simply removing the sculpture, making sure that the people never forget the blood that stained his reign.
Perhaps nowhere is the graffiti more incisive, and politically charged, than in Basque Country. Though the Basque nationalist terror organization ETA has been inactive for several years now, its influence clearly remains and can be seen sprayed in aerosol paint all across the capital city of San Sebastian. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Basque Country, as well as the rest of Spain, was racked with terrorist attacks and nationalist riots. Calls for amnesty for the fighters of ETA, some of whom still remain in jail, are hastily scribbled on walls and benches, especially in San Sebastian’s more famous sites. There are more sinister markings as well. Scattered around the city is the traditional anarchist squatting sign, a circle with a jagged arrow through it, suggesting safe havens still exist in San Sebastian for those plotting against the national government. This sort of civil unrest is bubbling up in the street art in more than just the Basque Country. In Madrid, it’s quite common to see anti-government slogans plastered on the streets and expletives denouncing the current president, Mariano Rajoy. These superficial markings reveal lasting scars, whether economic, nationalist, or otherwise, that run deep below the surface of Spain.
One thing is clear: whether politically, culturally, or artistically motivated, the street art culture of Spain is both deep-seated and vibrant. There is a certain duality to this underground community, as the roots in Spanish history push and pull against modern evolutions and reactions to the current day and age. These artists are as integral to Spain as Picasso, and their art is just as, if not more, relevant as the most famous Cubist paintings.
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