Street Art #183 Azulejos, Porto (Portugal)

heroldius (65)in #streetart • 5 years ago

Last month, I spent more than one week of vacation in the beautiful city of Porto where street art is at every street corner. For the first post of this series, I wanted to start with a traditional element of Portuguese culture. The azulejos may not be strictly speaking about street art (but there are in the street and they embellish the city, exactly my definition of street-art).

Tribute to Eugenio de Andrade, contemporary Portuguese poet (1923-2005) (Google Map)

Não há nenhuma cidade, assim, que subitamente não se torne secreta.
There is no city, so suddenly it doesn't become secretive.
(If you have a better traduction...)

I'll not speak about the history or the manufacturing technique, there is Wiki. More interesting, it's the use of the azulejos nowadays. Some street artists have appropriated this technique to create something new. I like it... We'll start with just a glimpse of the traditional use of azulejos. Church, house, in the street...

Church Santo Idelfonso (Google Map)

All the houses :-)

São Bento Railway Station 20,000 azulejo tiles on 551 m2 about Portuguese history. Impressive... (Google Map)

Street names

WHERE

Porto, Portugal.

Position on Google Maps

Even Mister Bean is impressed

WHO

Sagrado Profano

The first time I walked past these tiles, I didn't notice anything ... Fortunately, they were on the way to our rental home. You have to look closer :-)

This project aims to subvert the power game of the look. The images appear as a self-reflexive component that urges the viewer to become aware of their own position as a voyeur, diverting their attention from the object to themselves. (source)

This tiles are made by Sagrado Profano, artist based on Porto.
Back home, I see you can buy some tiles :

1 = 12.50€
4 = 30.00€
49 (1m2) = 210.00€

Some examples from their website :

MUDA

Coletivo MUDA is Brazilian collective that see the city as a laboratory for transformation. Muda means Change in Portuguese.

Moderne Coletivo Muda.JPG

Very colorful use of tiles.

Unknow artist

Before going to Porto, I had seen an article about this artist who had chosen to put scientific data on azulejos. But now impossible to find it ... so if you have a hint, leave me a comment. The only two I saw were near Jardim de São Lázaro.

Writing this post, I remembered the artist Add Fuel who exhibited in Montreal last year and his use of the Azulejos in his work.

On Boulevard Saint Laurent, Montreal (still visible)

More about this artist Street Art #073

There are many other examples of this reinvention of azulejos and the general desire to preserve this technique, especially with Banco de Materiais, free to visit. I didn't know... It'll be another reason to come back to Porto.