On a street art tour in Valparaíso, Chile, the inventive murals have a history behind them.
The Piano Stairs of Cerro Concepcíon
Several cities have high concentrations of street art, but it’s probably only in Valparaíso that you can trample all over it without realising. The truth dawns at the bottom of the stairs – look back up them, and they’re diligently painted in the pattern of white and black piano keys.
The Piano Stairs are on Cerro Concepcíon, one of several ludicrously steep hills rising from the Pacific Ocean that make Valparaíso an exercise in stubborn refusal to accept nature’s rulings on where a city can realistically be built.
Street art on Pasaje Galvez, Valparaíso
Amongst these hills, often clinging precariously to the sides, are worryingly narrow lanes where cans of spray paint get liberally emptied. Scrappy, rubbly Pasaje Galvez offers the complete range, from basic tagging to a giant black and white masterpiece which attempts to tell the history of Chile, whether Inca invasions or modern-day schoolkid protest movements.
Absurd geography alone, however, doesn’t account for why this often dog-eared but culturally thriving Chilean port town has been turned into a giant canvas.
The origins of Valparaíso’s street art scene
Walking through one of Valparíso’s token flat areas, Eddie Ramirez of Valpo Street Art Tours explains. “Under the dictatorship, painting was illegal. It was seen as political, and could have you marked as a Marxist.”
The dictatorship also created a Chilean diaspora, as thousands of families fled the country, setting up home in North America and Europe. But when democracy returned, so did many of the departed. Eddie was one of them – he spent 18 years in New York. Hip-hop culture was one of the few commonalities that these thrown-together young people had, and street art was entwined with it. When a spray paint shop opened up, tagging and murals became both an expression of newfound freedom and a bonding exercise amongst those who had grown up apart.
The Un Kolor Distinto mural
Outside the Somnaval building, Eddie shows off a 26 storey-tall mural by duo Un Kolor Distinto. It’s a summery vision of bounteous food, corn and blazing suns, and Eddie knows more about it than most as he was roped in to paint the grapes on it.
“It took my friends Sammy and Cynthia two-and-a-half weeks, and they used window-cleaning gear,” he explains. “They’ve done graffiti together since 1998 and the main theme is the love they have for each other. There’s always a guy and a girl.”
Attitudes to street art in Valparaíso
Perhaps more interesting than the thinking behind the mural, though, is the funding. It was paid for by the Ministry of Culture. The attitude to street art has gone full circle, from banned to commissioned.
On a smaller scale, this is what has happened on those hillside lanes. Home and business owners have decided they’d prefer to commission impressive murals than see their walls covered in low-creativity tagging.
Learning street art techniques in Valparaíso
Eddie might be creating some more budding artists, too. The tour finishes with a workshop in a mural-surrounded courtyard, where he wraps transparent film between two posts and starts teaching the spray can techniques. His entourage of bungling amateurs has a harmless blast or three onto the film, attempting to create their own handiwork. But then Eddie – street art name, Ronin – steps in to apply what he pretends are finishing touches. He’s soon engrossed, more or less creating entirely new artworks. Valparaíso’s spray can do attitude runs on such enthusiasm.
More Valparaíso travel
For other tours and experiences in Valparaíso, hunt over here.
