WHAT: Enjoying the marvellous and colourful pieces in Palermo during a Graffiti Walking Tour WHERE: Mainly around Palermo Soho and Palermo Viejo HOW MUCH: The tour costs 200 ARS per person, via Buenos Aires Free Walks. Albeit their daily walking tours through the center of BA are based on tips, this one has a fixed price HOW LONG: The tour takes you along a couple of center pieces in Palermo Soho, for some 2,5 to 3 hours or so
Queen Victoria. A magnificent piece commissioned by a pub. Queen Victoria is depicted with a heart bagpipe, a locomotive and more references to the industrialization in Great-Britain.
Wall full of stencils and stickers
Dead end street near Plaza Serrano, Palermo Soho
No matter how long you’re planning on staying in Buenos Aires, I bet you’ll never have enough time to see all of the street art and graffitis in town, especially as the outlook on the walls just keep on changing every now and then.
I’d walked around Palermo Soho countless of times and had seen so many murals already, but little did I know about the stories behind them. And therefore I was super happy that I joined the graffiti tour of Buenos Aires Free Walks.
Villa Crespo, just next to Palermo Soho at Calle Serrano
Our guide Luke had only (although only..) been living for six years in Buenos Aires, but it seemed like he knew every little detail about the graffiti and street art scene: the artists, their murals, the background stories, the costs of the paintings.
For sure Luke gave us an excellent insiders view of the graffiti culture and of how it evolved from the ’20s as political propaganda messages, to protest tags (pintadas) in the ’70s against the military government, to the nowadays much more artistic and even commercialised graffitis.
Luke explaining at Calle Russel about the commissioned painting behind him
Graffiti is legal in Buenos Aires nowadays, but only with consent of the owner of the building. So it makes sense, but it still is just kind of insane to see that many of the murals have a name tagged to it too. I mean, we’re used to the idea that these pieces are made in the darker hours of the day, avoiding police and all. But in Buenos Aires you can see the artists just spraying in the broad daylight. Sometimes they even add an Instagram referral to it, like has been done to the painting pictured on top of this article.
A very upbeat mural commissioned by the cafe owner at the crossing of Costa Rica x Gurruchaga
Apart from reoccurring themes throughout Buenos Aires, the tour is a great way to learn (if not again) more in general about the different types of graffiti and the different kinds of materials used in street art (such as stickers, stencils and wheat-paste posters). Another plus is that you to get to know the main streets and places to be of Palermo Soho and Viejo in between, so your orientation will be a lot better afterwards.
More flowergirls
Amazing mural of Alfredo Segatori in Palermo Viejo. He collected second-hand materials or trash to created depth and counter and painted them. The face is the door of a bar, and can be opened. It's especially stunning to see from up close, so this picture doesn't do justice.
If I look back at the roads we took I must say we’ve been walking quite a bit, crisscrossing the streets from one mural to the next. But the abundant art all around, some of which you’d probably never had encountered yourself, keeps you entertained for sure!
If you want to discover the bohemian sector of Buenos Aires in an amazing way and a little off the beaten path way, I’d say, go for this tour! You’ll see the city in a different perspective afterwards, and that’s a good thing for sure in this case.
The street Santa Rose in Palermo Soho
Che Guavara came from Argentina, so it's not surprising you see the icon popping up everywhere. Next to it was another enormous mural of JFK, but that one has been covered with other paintings nowadays
The enormous mural at the crossing of Soler x Aráoz in Palermo Viejo
