Barcelona City Council is refining its fight against the smears that have so displeased so many citizens for some time now. The government of Mayor Jaume Collboni these days launches a new contract aimed mainly at stopping the growing proliferation of manchurrones that devastates a good part of the city. We are talking about public spending of more than 16 million euros over the next two years.
Because tags, the crudest signature, the one that is stamped in a few seconds anywhere, with paint sprays, a powerful marker or even a sticker, do nothing but expand, and on top of that they do it everywhere: doors housing estates, any element of urban furniture, transport vans, protected facades… At the moment, daub arouses more indignation than ever, but in a few circles it is very much in vogue, it has many followers.
The commemorative t-shirt of the last assault on the subway has just gone on sale. A few days ago about 70 people flocked into the Sant Jaume station and defaced everything they found. The bill for cleaning up all those firms amounted to 135,000 euros. Lately in this underworld, intensity, insistence and perseverance count for much more than any consideration about whether the chosen place is better painted or not. And here illegality prevails. Otherwise you can’t be countercultural. Painting a signature in an authorized place becomes part of interior decoration.
Furthermore, the traditional rules of courtesy among those in the spray industry have been a thing of the past for years. Here social networks also did a lot of damage. The letter painters step on each other, more and more, without contemplation, and on top of that the ancient walls lost their privileges. Monuments, churches and other old stones are also scribbled from time to time. Some examples from recent times: the Pi church, the Lloctinent palace, Botero’s cat, the Kiss mural, the Migdia bastion, the Santa Maria del Mar basilica, the Plensa sculpture in front of the Palau de la Música , the surroundings of the old Santa Creu hospital…
With the new contract, the City Council will dedicate up to 131 workers to alleviate this situation, 30% more than until now. And these employees will no longer focus mainly on the walls, they will also pay special attention to benches, fountains, planters, railings, bike racks, information panels, plaques with the names of streets and squares… Because any place is good to take out the marker.
In addition, the City Council’s new service also provides, for the first time, for the cleaning of façades of heritage buildings classified as Cultural Assets of Local Interest, Assets of Urban Planning Interest or Assets of Documentary Interest. Only buildings classified as Cultural Assets of National Interest are excluded, given that these properties require very specific cleaning work.
In fact, graffiti in general has been in the City Council’s sights for a long time. The civility ordinance, back in 2006, established the era of zero tolerance and put an end to a decade of collusion that made Barcelona one of the world meccas of urban art. The characteristics of the new municipal cleaning service were designed during the last term of Mayor Ada Colau. In 2022, the City Council has already carried out more than 123,000 actions of this type and cleaned more than 300,000 m2 of graffiti. What happens is that Mayor Collboni’s executive did elevate the matter to the category of mandate priority, a fundamental pillar of the vaunted Endreça plan. Colau preferred to appear concerned about other issues.
One of the first measures of the PSC government was to inform the Urban Guard that when sanctioning uncontrolled parties, street urination and any graffiti, it should indicate the highest amount included in the civility ordinance. In fact, the toughening of sanctions is one of the arguments of the municipal government when proposing to opposition groups the reform of this ordinance. The problem is that the more the authorities pursue graffiti, the more defacement proliferates. If it only takes you a couple of seconds to leave your signature, it is more difficult to get caught.
Furthermore, the matter has a political reading. The socialist executive only has ten councilors. And until it reaches government pacts with opposition groups, it has very little room for maneuver. Intensifying the fight against graffiti is one of the few ways available to demonstrate government action to the citizens. And anyone who regularly walks through the city center has already seen that erasing graffiti is underlined in red on the municipal agenda. Collboni is well aware that cleanliness is one of the great concerns of Barcelona residents, and that neglecting it entails major political wear.
The problem manifests itself throughout Barcelona. But it is mainly reflected in the Ciutat Vella district. Here many streets and squares are a palimpsest. The neighbors got tired of trying to clean the doors of their properties a long time ago. And many graffiti artists understand that a few neighborhoods in this district are conquered territory. They won’t abandon him anyway. The only space that seems mysteriously respected is the one that houses the replica of Keith Haring’s anti-AIDS mural that stands in the Raval neighborhood, between the MACBA and the CCCB. The surroundings are indeed crowded, but no one dares to step on the legacy of the person who elevated graffiti on the subway to the category of art.
