Asfáltico In Action (Mendoza, Argentina)

Asfáltico en acción, #14. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

We finally hooked up, Asfáltico and I. It was an entertaining and revealing experience to watch them transform an urban canvas–one of their older works, as it happened–into a new mural in just over three hours.

Who are they? Six gifted young men: Jóse Pavez, Kevin “Sin Filtro” Suarez, Luciano “Tano” Motta, Ignacio “Nacho” Fernandez, Esteban “Látigo” Warro, and Adrian “Soto” Soto (the latter was unable to be at this session, unfortunately).

As the grupo Asfáltico might tell you themselves, rolling, brushing, and spraying paint on outdoor walls is the pure democratization of art. There is no need to pay any price of admission to see their work. The rich, the poor, the street sweeper, the politician, the lawyer, the newspaper kiosk hawker, the student, the bakery owner–all have an equal opportunity to view and interpret what they see as they walk by on the public sidewalk.

Another aspect of their art that they (and I) find fascinating is how it deteriorates over time. The rain, sun, wind, as well as other (usually lesser) graffiti artists and taggers, all extract their toll over the months and years. The original work is not static, but a dynamic statement…always changing…subject to the whims of the environment and human intervention. A dimension of history and time is slowly added with the passing days. What the Asfálticos put up originally is not what you will see two years later.

Today, I got to observe the process. The following images and commentary tell the story…

The Process

Location: Calle Patricias Mendocinas, between Calle Colón and Calle Pedro Molina, in Mendoza, Argentina.

Date: April 12, 2016

Time: 5:30p.m. to 9:00p.m.

Their project: paint over one of their earlier murals. This is what the parking lot (cochera) wall looked like before work began. The natural elements, cement decay, as well as other graffiti wannabees had taken their toll, but I thought it still looked quite presentable. I especially liked the strange beast on the left emerging from an egg:

The Before. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

The pre-flight briefing…overall design strategy is being discussed. The big plan was mainly in their heads, although I did see a basic pen drawing on a small piece of paper and an image on a cell phone–both used as preliminary sketches. The woman was there to get their signatures for photography releases for an upcoming urban art contest:

Asfáltico en acción, #4. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

José takes care of his paperwork. That’s Sin Filtro in the background:

Asfáltico en acción, #1. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Látigo does the same:

Asfáltico en acción, #5. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

As does Nacho. No wait, I think he is actually just sketching out his idea a bit before starting on the wall. I love the glove sticking out of his pocket. Now where’s Tano?

Asfáltico en acción, #7. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Ah, there he is! It looks like he is prepping the area a bit–knocking off the larger chips of rotten concrete–before getting down to business with the paints:

Asfáltico en acción, #9. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

The tools of the trade. Paints and the application tools are costly, so if you have a hankering to donate to some hard-working young artists this would be a great cause–or you could hire them to paint your own personal custom mural in New York, Enid, Truth or Consequences, Why, or even Moscow or Barcelona!

Asfáltico en acción, #2. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Asfáltico en acción, #3. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Nacho starts work on what will eventually be an indigenous figure from a tribe in southern Argentina, while José, using aerosol, frames out his giant canine…and the previous mural begins to disappear into a confusion of lines and patterns:

Asfáltico en acción, #10. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

On this occasion, Látigo took on the role of working on the background while the others painted individual “portraits”:

Asfáltico en acción, #15. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Asfáltico en acción, #23. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Definitely wear your paint clothes if this is your preferred art form!

Asfáltico en acción, #34. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Nacho’s indigenous figure begins to take form–here, he works on the face. I imagine it takes time to learn to paint up close to such a large “canvas” while keeping an appropriate perspective. Indeed, each artist would step back now and then for a gander from a typical viewer’s distance just to be sure all was going well:

Asfáltico en acción, #18. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Here is Tano, bringing to life the rhinoceros eye. He was working off of a pen sketch he had made earlier on a 3×5 piece of paper. To me, it is amazing how visual artists can hold in their mind’s eye a vision of exactly what they want the final product to look like and then simply work toward that end:

Asfálticos en acción, #21. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

While Asfáltico concentrated on applying their artistic vision (and paint) to the wall, my artistic camera-eyeball was attracted to the various still life compositions made up of the paint trays, brushes, aerosol cans, bright colors, and sloppy textures:

Asfáltico en acción, #24. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Asfáltico en acción, #26. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Asfáltico en acción, #33. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Here’s a street view of the entire wall, with passersby, early on in the process. The four main subjects are starting to emerge and the background is also slowly seeping in and around the four. This particular job took them just over three hours and is really a fairly minor “quickie” mural compared to what the group is capable of:

Asfáltico en acción, #29. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Tano takes another peak at his rhino sketch for reference:

Asfáltico en acción, #35. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Then Tano has a brief composition-perspective conference with José before getting back to the business:

Asfáltico en acción, #38. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Oh, what five-year-old kid wouldn’t want to stick his fingers into this gooey, technicolor mess then, with his tiny but energetic digits, put his artistic prowess on display (to show his proud parents, of course!) all over his bedroom walls!? The sticky brush would only add to the child’s delight:

Asfáltico en acción, #37. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

A ladder right between the eyes:

Asfáltico en acción, #40. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

José works his aerosol technique. He says he tends to prefer this paint application method, although he is certainly not averse to using brushes or rollers–whatever is appropriate. How the heck does he go from here to a massive, growling, canine face?

Asfáltico en acción, #41. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Sin Filtro’s subject was the one and only human visage on the wall–a modern take on William Shakespeare, perhaps?

Asfáltico en acción, #42. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

A ladder still life. I liked the rhyming of lines between Látigo’s sweat pants and the verticals on the metal door as well as the ladder diagonal and the one diagonal on that same door. Then you have the contrast of the exploding colors, the ladder leaning in as a “support” to hold up the mural:

Asfáltico en acción, #45. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

As afternoon turned to evening, the street lights came on, casting an eerie yellowish glow on the street scene (which I did not correct to show it how it actually was). This made it more difficult for the guys to gauge the colors and tones of their paints. Still, they pressed on. Here, you can see that the four main figures are nearing completion, although the background is still lacking a whole lot of final, fine, detail:

Asfáltico en acción, #49. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Under the yellow lights, Nacho and Sin Filtro add the group’s signature to their work. I like how Nacho wrapped the ASFALTICO around the corner to make it three dimensional:

Asfáltico en acción, #51. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Asfáltico en acción, #52. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Two days later I managed to go by to get some pictures of the final work in decent daylight to show the actual colors. While watching the artistic process two nights earlier, what impressed me most was all the finishing detail and shadowing-highlight touches the Asfáltico guys added to give form and dimension to both the four big figures and the background itself. I kept thinking they were done–then they would come up with some more subtle additions which kept adding to the sense of depth. In good light, all of that effort is more easily appreciated. :

Asfáltico en acción, #53. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

A couple of close up shots showing the detail. Keep in mind, this was a “quicky” three-hour job. In another post I will include some pictures of some of their larger jobs:

Asfáltico en acción, #54. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016

Asfáltico en acción, #55. Mendoza, Argentina, 2016