URUGUAY: Streetart, Surfspot and a fancy Lighthouse – La Paloma

On the first glance you could assume that the place is somewhere around the Baltic or at the Wadden Sea. The architecture doesn´t really look very South American. As well there is this huge but small white lighthouse, which reminds more on Denmark or the German Otto comedy movies. But the palms, the warm climate and the high waves will disabuse you. La Paloma is located at the southeastern coast of Uruguay and it´s covered with awesome paintings, fantastic streetart and hidden graffiti. We brought you nice photo material from our last trip to the little chillspot. It´s an insider tip for surfer, artists and mountainbiker.

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JAPAN: DougoyART Paintaction – Artists Baki Baki & Mon

We already stood several days in Matsuyama, we visited and explored all the fantastic sights and the interesting city. Actually we wanted to leave to Ōzu in the south the next day. But our friend Mathew Iannarone from the Sen Guesthouse recommended us definitely to stay another night because he has some secret special insider event. This hostel is a place we can very recommend by the way, but there will be an article about guesthouse owner Mathew and his exciting life in Japan in another article which is in preparation. But back to our special event, which really was worth it to stay. Mathew took us to a livingroom-live-painting session with the graffiti artists BAKI BAKI and MON. The name of the event is DougoyART. It´s an relaxed artistique festivity in an homelike atmosphere which was in the befriended guesthouse of Hisatsugu Shimizu. As well there is audio included and musicians are taking part, this time the band The Sun.

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ISRAEL: Streetart Florentin

Florentin is actually a part of Tel Aviv, we wrote already about its street art. But Florentin deserves a special part about the graffiti and the particular surrounding. The walls are covered with nice artwork and the extraordinary mix with the industrial buildings is phenomenal. It is as well a very interesting place if you want to directly observe and study some kind of half-functioning but still developing gentrification. Some streets are in perfect hipster manner, there are chick bars and nice cafes, a lot of alternative and different styles. But just around the corner there is as well the factory quarter, between dirty roads and market streets all over. Its a fantastic mix. There the stylo cafes, on the other side is one car repair shop next to each other with a scrap head in front of the place. Just the architectural commingling is fantastic.

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ISRAEL: Streetart Tel Aviv

We sneaked away again during the cold months. Overwintering somewhere far more in the south, definitly very recommendable. Of course we brougth a nice collection of street art pictures and graffiti material from the place we went to: Israel. As well we went for an interview to the since 10 years existing Montana can shop in Tel Aviv. The country has a lot to offer and is worth an explorative visit.

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LAOS: Toilet Streetart and Loo Graffiti – 4000 Islands

Actually I wanted to call it crapper-graffitis, the word is a bit too vulgar for the headline, but I just can´t get it out of my head and during the whole journey we really called this awesome artwork crapper graffitis all the time. In fact it was graffiti on crappers. Toilet graffiti sounded too western and too functioning, it were more some lavatory rooms far away from modern society on some islands without streets and with farmers, who rent some rooms to travelers and backpackers. Two-holer, outhouse or privy isn´t the right word as well, neither shithouse, because they all have some flush and lavation system. So let it be crapper. But in the end it isn´t important what you do at these places, much more what you can see on the outside walls…

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JAPAN: Streetart Osaka – 落書き Graffiti Nippon

We started the new year in Osaka, Japan. Konnichiwa! The celebration was great, the food and the sake fantastic, but the Japanese are not very familiar with streetart and graffiti. It is very regularized, officialized, well-signposted, marked and labeled. Streetpaintings which are out of the prevailing rules and raster, get cleaned away fast or cubically painted over. Which is kind of another invitation for some more already framed wish-wash or spray can art….

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BULGARIA: Sofia Graffiti Tour – Niki Borisov – Background knowledge to local Urban Art

We had already an article about streetart and the city tours in Sofia. In the following story we want to tell you a bit more especially about the Sofia Graffiti Tour and some little streetart gimmicks, we found during our expedition through Bulgaria´s capital. The Graffiti Tour starts on the four days between Friday and Monday always at 3 pm at the corner of „Todor Alexandrov“ and „Bratya Miladinovi“ in front of the Statue of Sofia close to the metro station Serdika and is definitly recommendable. We were very lucky that day, no one else was taking part at the tour, so we had our tour guide Niki Borisov just for ourselves and could even ask and discus more.

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BULGARIA: Sofia City and Sight Seeing Tours – Also Urban Art included

On our last trip we went to the Balkan for some days, more precisely to Bulgaria and it´s beautiful capital Sofia. The weather was kind of unfavorable, from rain to little snow storms, but still we could explore this interesting city extensively and brought you a lot of marvelous streetart fotos and graffiti material. The country and the city looks back over 6000 years of history shaped by a lot of different cultures during the centuries. Everywhere you can find protected monuments and archaeological excavation originated from the Roman Empire, which were found during road work or tunnel bores. The medieval Bulgaria is everywhere integrated in newer buildings, you can see architecture from the Ottoman occupation and everywhere in between there is the distinctive Eastern Bloc design of the communism. All of this commingles in different ways with the modern Bulgaria. Very cool!

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CHILE: Streetart La Serena

Another very cool surfers spot in Chile is the second biggest city in the country: La Serena. Here the Elqui-Valley is just around the corner, it´s one of the main producing areas for the Chilenian national drink Pisco. It´s a very nice drink, you can get in Germany as well, but for sure not comparable to the one you can get there at the vineyards. The city is really nice, with the historic center built in the colonial style and if you arrive from the north it is quite pleasant to arrive at this alive and green place after a lot of ghosttowns in the Atacama desert, who remind on the salpeter mining period.

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