The National Museum of Anthropology tells about the origin of graffiti in Spain through graffiti, sneakers, clothes, photos, posters or cassettes from the 80s and 90s
As of today, entering the National Museum of Anthropology is almost like walking the streets of Madrid where it is held. Because within the walls of the enclosure it is already on display, and until November 1, ‘Everything started in 84. Origin of graffiti in Spain’, an exhibition that looks at the birth of hip-hop culture and graffiti in cities such as Madrid, Barcelona and Seville and its development between 1984 and 1991. “They were the pioneers, the lost generation, from then on a lot changed and another generation came with different skies,” explains Francisco Reyes, curator of an exhibition with which the Ministry of Culture inaugurates a cycle of projects dedicated to urban cultures.
In chronological order and organized in three rooms and a distributor – dedicated to the first Spanish graffiti artist, Muelle-, the exhibition delves through objects, photos and audiovisual projections at the beginning of that movement thanks to the explosion of ‘break dance’ in Spain in 1984 and then that of graffiti and rap, between 1989 and 1991, with a room dedicated to the original signatures of the first artists and the beginnings of rap in Spain. The third room houses the graphic testimonials about the dimension that this cultural phenomenon had.
Although the title is misleading: ‘It all started in 84. Origins of graffiti in Spain’, it is not just devoted to painting and street signs. “You can’t just talk about graffiti and ignore everything else -reyes explains-, so we decided to tell the truth and put everything in context. In 1984 we knew what graffiti was, but we were dancing» .
Clothing, shoes and belts, stereos, vinyl records and cassettes, fanzines, posters, concert tickets, sketches, correspondence, original autographs… These are some of the objects, collected with the complicity of key figures in hip culture. beginning -collectors, rappers, writers and ‘breakers’-, present in another collection, which has taken over this museum center, as evidenced by the amount of handwritten text, with spray and markers, that runs over the walls. “You have to spend three hours to read everything the same”, laughs the project leader, who wrote a large part of the texts together with other references of the genre such as Kapi, Zeta, Suso33, Toro, Mata. , Remebe, Randy, and Larry88, among others.
As of November 1, all texts will disappear. Did they want to mimic the evanescence of graffiti? “Actually, all exhibitions are,” he replies. “What we’ve tried to do is be original and that instead of finding a lot of text stuck to vinyl and block letters, people find themselves with a stretch of street that’s been bombarded with graffiti, with letters, with colors, with splashes … We want people to feel like in a shitty neighborhood, full of graffiti and autographs,” he concludes.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
