Lisbon, Tattooed City . / DAMn°41

Portuguese architectural historian António Sérgio Rosa de Carvalho nevertheless thinks it a shame, even if buildings are covered with masterpieces like the ones from the Brazilian twin brothers, Os Gêmeos, and the Italian urban artists in Lisbon’s business district. “That kind of graffiti, however beautiful, shouldn’t be on the only four remaining historic buildings in that neighbourhood. Those precious buildings should be renovated, not painted. Even a masterpiece like the one by Os Gêmeos denotes that this heritage is worth nothing and is ready for demolition. Governments pretend to be modern by inviting artists, but they’re actually using them to demolish the city’s heritage!”

VHILS. Photo: João Pedro Moreira.

Lisbon, Tattooed City

A stroll with VHILS
by Veerle Devos / http://www.damnmagazine.net/en/article/lisbon-tattooed-city

 01 November 2013 / DAMn°41

Oh, graffiti. Like pigeons, it is found in urban centres all over the world. And, as with pigeons in a town square, an expanse of graffiti emits an overall appearance that reads as a mass of similarity and muchness. There are the occasional stunning ones that command attention, and should you stop to examine each of the others individually, you can usually find something of interest. Lisbon has accumulated a particularly potent array of accomplished urban artwork that warrants inspection. DAMN° perambulated through the streets of the city with VHILS, one of its master urban artists, who lent his perspective.

VHILS team in action, Shanghai, picture by João Pedro Moreira. – 

When Alexandre Farto was born in Lisbon some 26 years ago, the city was still recovering from over 40 years of dictatorship and poverty. On the walls of the city were the remnants of revolutionary graffiti. “Unfortunately, only very few examples were kept. That’s the fate of graffiti: “It’s ephemeral”, says VHILS, the moniker adopted by the Portuguese urban artist who was launched by Banksy. We meet him at his brand new studio, from where we embark on an extended walk along the many ‘worked’ walls of Lisbon, a much-tattooed entity stretched-out along the sunny banks of the river Tejo. Some of the surfaces bear his own work, while many others feature the work of fellow urban artists.

After a couple of years as a London resident, VHILS – who excavates layers of paint, graffiti, and billboards with the dedication of an archaeologist, while creating his signature carved portraits in cities all over the world – is now back in his hometown. “The decaying beauty and many layers of history make Lisbon a nostalgic city – a capital full of crumbling buildings and, due to Portugal’s colonial heritage, of many different faces from various continents. And now that so many young people are leaving the country because of the harsh economic crisis and defaulting government, I have decided to come back and set up a studio here.” Not that he suddenly became sedentary – on the contrary, VHILS and his team regularly fly to Shanghai, Rio, New York, and everywhere in-between. “We use the streets to bring a message.”

Lisbon's street art is no longer just found on the streets. Many Portuguese graffiti artists have begun to exhibit in galleries, like MaisMenos, who exhibits his show ‘Sellout’ in Underdogs Gallery. – 

With the crisis, artists started to do more political pieces, which is quite interesting. Some Portuguese urban artists get really critical, like MAISMENOS”, VHILS says, showing us some of his work at Underdogs Gallery, the venue for urban art he launched last summer in a part of Lisbon once destined to become the creative district, but which was scuttled when the crisis hit in 2008. Now there is an atmosphere particular to dying neighbourhoods, where urban art flourishes. MAISMENOS or + , aka Miguel Januário, is an emerging talent. "He’s vetting society, which is increasingly becoming a supermarket", VHILS explains while pointing to another work that states ‘Until debt tear us apart’ at LX Factory, a 23,000 square-metre former industrial complex that was transformed into an arts centre and has now become so gentrified that the first occupants cannot afford it anymore and have to move out – to places like the Underdogs hood.

VHILS in Providência (Brazil), picture by João Pedro Moreira. –

VHILS, who declares that gentrification is an unavoidable urban development – Lisbon is increasingly sold-out to foreign real estate groups, to be transformed into yet another Barcelona-like mass tourism paradise – turns out to be no-less-than an urban activist when carving out portraits of the inhabitants who had been evicted in Providência – the oldest favela in Rio – on the sides of what remained of their homes. He did the same kind of socially engaged work in Shanghai, and he’s planning more such projects. A book about these and other ‘social’ projects will be published by Gallimard in March 2014. “I’m not against gentrification when it comes naturally. But if it’s top-down and if it comes with the extinction of the inhabitants, like because of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics in Brazil, it can’t be tolerated. We drew attention from the world press to the cause of these poor, powerless locals, and gave them a face – the result is that they can now stay and the government will finally provide the services they should have provided years ago.” It proves that urban artists can do slightly more than just tag trains – in Lisbon, it’s hard to find walls, trains, or street furniture without signature tags. VHILS defends this as being a necessary evil: “Every great urban artist once started by tagging. And by handling trains you learn to work fast, organise yourself, and perform under pressure (if the police catch you, it’ll cost you a fortune). This offers excellent informal learning opportunities.”

CRONO PROJECT The Crono Project, which commissioned artists like Blu and Os Gemeos (see picture) to transform neglected buildings in the business district instead of abandoning Lisbon's crumbling heritage to the developers. – 

Portuguese architectural historian António Sérgio Rosa de Carvalho nevertheless thinks it a shame, even if buildings are covered with masterpieces like the ones from the Brazilian twin brothers, Os Gêmeos, and the Italian urban artists in Lisbon’s business district. “That kind of graffiti, however beautiful, shouldn’t be on the only four remaining historic buildings in that neighbourhood. Those precious buildings should be renovated, not painted. Even a masterpiece like the one by Os Gêmeos denotes that this heritage is worth nothing and is ready for demolition. Governments pretend to be modern by inviting artists, but they’re actually using them to demolish the city’s heritage!” Lisbon City Hall recently launched a campaign against graffiti, consisting of an abundant cleaning programme in the city centre (so tourists who don’t leave the beaten track won’t see any disturbing tags), huge fines for those who are caught, and legal urban galleries for ‘artistic graffiti’. VHILS seems to have inspired the authors of the new law, since they explicitly mention ‘carving´ as a practice to be eradicated. If it’s up to the city government, urban artists will only be allowed to work at spots like the wall of fame near the 25 de Abril Bridge, named after the revolution, where we halt for a moment to look at a carved portrait by VHILS and many other works by fellow urban artists. “Places like these are important, where artists can work steadily without fear of the police catching them. But it can’t only be this…”

Pray for Portugal (by Nomen, born in the year of the revolution, 1974). VHILS: “With the crisis more artists make political work.” – 

VHILS’s own 3D crew recently finished a piece on another, not-yet-legally-tolerated wall in front of the biggest shopping mall in the city centre. The wall is covered in a variety of old and new, Portuguese and international masterpieces, most of them quite critical, some merely artistic. “You’ll probably get more from the walls in a city than from television and other media… People write what they want on a wall. And that’s the good thing about graffiti, too: people can get their word out, without having to sign their message. Which means freedom of speech still exists on walls. Urban art makes the public space interesting again in a time when it’s losing importance due to social media – thus, it reanimates the public space as an environment where people can discuss things: abandoned buildings, for instance, are overlooked until there’s graffiti on them... Then, all of a sudden, people start to notice and to discuss what should happen with the abandoned heritage. It’s important that with modern technology and so on, real public space gets as interesting as virtual environments on the internet, and urban art can help a great deal in doing that job. And hey, if you have space for advertising in a city, just for the sake of selling things, you should also have space for artists in the public domain, just for the sake of art”, concludes VHILS, reluctant to show his face – “the message, not the messenger”. 

Tags and scribbles cover the streets of Lisbon.

Merkel controlling Portuguese politicians (prime minister Passos Quelho and external affairs minister Paulo Portas) like puppets on the strings made just before the visit of the Chancellor of Germany, in November 2012. (by Nomen, Slap and Kurtz) –

 Removed tags.

 MAR in LX Factory, Lisbon.

Ready to be shipped. At VHILS´ studio in Lisbon.

Don't let urban art cover up neglect of Lisbon's crumbling heritage

Officially sanctioned graffiti artists are not the answer to revitalising a beautiful city        

John Chamberlain

            The Guardian, Friday 4 February 2011 / http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/feb/04/street-art-urban-planning-lisbon-portugal

Rachel Dixon suggests that Lisbon council's liberal offering of derelict buildings to graffiti artists provides some alternative landscape for the itinerant tourist (Quick on the draw, Travel, 29 January). Highlighting recent examples in the city, she seems torn between viewing the results "either as a scourge or what makes a city unique".

However attractive to the art buff roaming around Europe, Lisbon highlights a disturbing practice of trying to disguise urban eyesores with alternative art – a pervasive form of official neglect. Dixon rightly identifies that she's talking about "a cluster of grand but derelict buildings". In Lisbon much is derelict!

Architecturally, Lisbon is the "Cinderella city" of Europe – much neglected, constantly abused, derelict and dilapidated. The buildings Dixon refers to are in the main centre and have been empty for 30 years. Graffiti is a scourge, as the Bairro Alto district amply proves, with itinerant, wall-to-wall scrawlings and illiterate hieroglyphics everywhere. Residents despair.

The graffiti initiative highlights poignantly the total absence of an urban strategy for regenerating the city centre. Estimates suggest there are more than 4,600 buildings empty in the central area, 50% either abandoned awaiting demolition or approval. Dixon mentions the Crono Project as an alternative to "abandoning Lisbon's crumbling heritage to the developers". Everyone likes to demonise developers, but in this case the responsibility for such a state should be laid at the door of the planning authorities.

Dixon refers to Barcelona, whose "policy crackdown in 2004 caused the disappearance of much graphic and performance art from the streets" – but the small-scale urban regeneration there was so successful that the Royal Institute of British Architects awarded the place a gold medal, the first time a city has been so glorified.

The historic centre of Lisbon is commercially in decline, and has fewer than 10 residents. Small businesses are closing, franchising is everywhere. The Chiado area, close to Bairro Alto and destroyed by fire in 1988, is renovated and improving but too slowly. British architect Terry Farrell's proposals for the river frontage are now forgotten after being demonised by the local architectural community. Thirty years ago, as an architect involved in Bristol's and London's urban partnerships, I made proposals here to the Lisbon council and was ignored.

Dixon enjoyed Bairro Alto's restaurants and hectic nightlife with its "mix of trendy locals and knowledgable tourists". This classic residential area has grown gradually over the years without official intervention. The examples highlighted – the Crono Project, Hall of Fame, the Galeria de Arte Urbana – may well provide opportunities, as Dixon says, "to distinguish between meaningless scrawls and impressive pieces of urban art". But few locals are impressed. Many don't appreciate Lisbon council "turning over derelict buildings to street artists with stunning results" and would rather see more positive use of public money.

However, it's a beautiful city. Dixon should ignore the artwork, report the dereliction, and visit the few conservation projects that can be found. These are what make Lisbon unique, not itinerant spray jobs.