Discovering Street Art in Valparaiso

Valparaiso brings to mind the sea, hills, colorful houses... and graffiti. In Valparaiso, art lives outdoors. Street Art fills the walls, spilling onto the sidewalks and lampposts of the city: art is everywhere in Valpo! From the most basic tags to the most sophisticated murals, there is something for every taste.

I will take you on the trails of graffiti, for lovely walks through the neighborhoods of the city, discovering a lesser-known side of Valparaiso. Are you in?

How can we distinguish the spray-painted artworks on the walls?

Everything is in the intention:

Street Art appeared in Valparaiso with a political engagement idea. Tags and graffiti carried messages of opposition to the dictatorship in place. Nowadays (and since the 2000s), they are mostly purely aesthetic and a form of artistic expression.

But graffiti not only evolves through eras; it also evolves with the artist. The artist often starts by tagging (in the sense of painting their signature with spray paint), then progresses to find their style and define their art.

During one of the walks focused on graffiti, we discovered the styles of famous graffiti artists from Valparaiso: it was very entertaining to recognize their signatures and see their styles evolve.

Another of my great discoveries about the world of Street Art in Valparaiso: the largest murals are often the work of several graffiti artists collaborating. One paints the face, another the body, while the third joins in with a completely different style, on an abstract, cubic, or futuristic decoration... All creating a mixture of styles that is quite astonishing!

Street Art also overwhelms the lampposts and sometimes spills onto the sidewalks, creating beautiful perspectives. Most of the time, it serves no other purpose than to be decorative, but it can also be commissioned (for example, by the municipality) to artistically decorate the houses with images of the city and sometimes to represent the profession carried out in that house. An artistic way to highlight one's business!

Graffiti is everywhere in Valparaiso... but some neighborhoods have a concentration of beautiful murals, such as around the funicular in the Polanco neighborhood, around Cerro Alegre and Concepcion, and also at the nearby...

The graffiti create a nice theme for walking through the city. They draw a friendly route that allows you to explore the city on foot (the best way to discover it!) and stumble upon some amusing surprises, like a slide in the middle of the city, or a rather daring piece of art, like this toilet... (but what would UNESCO think?)!

The vivid colors of the paintings are all the more striking against the brightly colored houses on the city's heights. One of our guides told us that these houses are so colorful due to a preventive measure by the state in the 1920s to combat depression during a recession. A beautiful way to add color to life... and to see life in pink, yellow, blue, green...!

Several routes exist to traverse the neighborhoods of Valparaiso in the discovery of local Street Art. The best spots for this are in the cerros (hills) Carcel, Pateon, Miraflores, Alegre, and Bellavista.

The open-air museum is also a must-visit for street art lovers. Located in the Bellavista neighborhood, it is filled with graffiti, paintings, mosaics... from facades to staircases! The project for this unique museum was launched in 1969 to revitalize a working-class neighborhood but was later abandoned during the dictatorship. It rose from the ashes a few years later in 1992. More than 70 artists gathered around this project, including Francisco Méndez, Eduardo Pérez, Maria Martner, Roberto Matta, Nemesio Antúnez...

In practice: To get to the open-air museum, there are two options: from Alemania Avenue, descending La Sebastiana street, or from the Espiritu Santo funicular.

Many recognized artists, such as Pure Evil, Inti, Aislap, Dana Pink, UnKolorDistinto (a couple of graffiti artists known as...)... These are Chileans, but also graffiti artists from all nationalities: North Americans, French (like Seth), Belgians (like Roa)...

Pure Evil, this name was unfamiliar to me, yet one of his graffiti made us think directly of one of his more famous works, depicting the Queen of England.

Here are some photos to give you a little glimpse of the artworks found painted on the walls of Valparaiso. There is something for every taste:

To visit Valparaiso following in the footsteps of the great graffiti artists, my best advice is to be accompanied by a guide. Three reasons for this:

In practice: We recommend the agency..., which offers walks in Valparaiso following the tracks of the graffiti: over 500 graffiti to discover on the various routes they offer. They even provide a tour to learn how to make graffiti! Address: the meeting point is at Animal Pinto square (reservation needed) Hours: every day at Rate: there is no fixed price: it's up to each person to tip the guide Website: Valpo Street Art - full of humor and good information.

So, are you tempted by a trip to the heart of Street Art in Valparaiso?

To go further: What to see in Valparaiso, The soul of Valparaiso , Chilean Patagonia: from the Southern Route to the fjords of the end of the world, A year of travel around the world