It’s been called the San Francisco of Europe and is said to be one of the most liberal, busy and artistic cities on our continent. Barcelona certainly has a widespread reputation to live up to, and in many ways it does. Tattoos and street art, on the other hand, are surprisingly rare...
Walking through the streets of Barcelona is a little like walking through an architecture exhibition. With Antoni Gaudí - creator of the weird cathedral La Sagrada Familia - as the face of Barcelona architecture, the city features a truly amazing and unique style.
On a smaller scale, the narrow streets in areas like Grácia, El Borne and El Bárrio Gótico creates a picturesque, almost village-like feeling (which many of these areas actually were before Barcelona expanded), perfectly suited for creative minds. Yet I notice something missing.
Two things in fact: street art and tattooed people.
During the five days I spent in Barcelona I saw very few tattoos and most of what I do see aren’t all that impressive to be honest, but there must be some reason that there are around 200 tattoo shops in the area. Javier Castaña at Electric Tattoo, has a theory, at least about the tattoos that do exist:
“People here want what they see. They’re not very original and it’s all about fashion. If they see a koi carp, they want that. Some people want calligraphy but they often don’t really know what words they want. They don’t have a reason for the tattoo. If they see someone on TV having something cool like “Only God can judge me” written on them, then that’s what they want. And you know that if a football player or an actor gets a certain tattoo, you will be doing that very tattoo for months ahead!”
He’s one of the city’s most talked about tattooists and the trend doesn’t seem to be bothering him too much.
”Most of my clients ask about my work but I get some tourists as well and I don’t mind doing commercial work now and then.”
El Monga at Aloha Tattoos somewhat agrees with him.
“It used to be more walk-in but it’s changed a lot over the last five or six years. Ten years, ago the tattoos made were mostly black and grey. Now there’s more colour, more modern. There’s still a lot of bullshit though. I’d say 80 percent of the studios in Barcelona are crap. A lot of people who open studios don’t know how to draw. They just think it’s good business.”
He, himself, moved to Spain from Argentina eight years ago and is one of many foreigners coming to Barcelona because of its good reputation. At the same time, a lot of people move out, and this constant change seems to be what Barcelona is all about, at least according to Sole at Santa Demonia Tattoo, who also is from Argentina:
“The city is in constant change. A lot of young people move in for like half a year or a year and if I go back to a neighbourhood after four months, it never looks the same. This has influenced the art scene. I work a lot with cultures from all over the world and that’s easier when they all exist here.”
Another immigrant - from England this time - is Mervyn at Addicted Tattoo. According to Mervyn there’s been another big change in the Barcelona tattoo scene, due to the recent financial crisis. One that has seen many of these out-of-towners disappear.
“There’s been an exodus of tattooers from Barcelona the last couple of years. There are a lot of people who want to live here and try it out, but there’s been too many. At one point I had two people per week coming in, asking me for a job - I also have a friend who owned a shop for ten years before he recently gave up. He just got tired of struggling.”
Although it might sound bad, all the artists I talk to agree that Barcelona is still a thriving city when it comes to tattooing.
“You can get any style here at a super good level,” El Monga says. “We have for instance, Jondix at LTW who’s one of the best at Polynesian style tribal and Javier Castaña is really good too.”
“I would say the level is higher than in England,” Mervyn adds. “Walk-ins are dying out and clients know what they want. 90 percent of the clients have already been through all the studios on the internet before they decide.”
When he first came here, eight years ago, he saw a difference in the tattoo world between Spain and England, a difference that has basically been erased:
“It was easier to get a lot of interesting work down here. In England the more privileged tattoo artists got the interesting stuff. But nowadays, when you go back to London you see full sleeves everywhere. It seems to be booming there now, and in that sense, previously, Barcelona was ahead.”
The artists also agree there’s no real Barcelona style of tattooing, but Mervyn does see a pattern in the motifs people choose.
“They do a lot of catholic symbols and family portraits. There are many 50-year olds who want pictures and names of their kids or grand-kids and if you go to the beach, you can see a lot of 70-year olds covered in tattoos. I’m lucky - I’ve become the local artist around here, so I tattoo the guy who owns the restaurant on the corner, the local baker and so on.”
I don’t feel I’ve received a good enough answer as to why I see so few tattoos, only hints, but I realise I probably won’t either. Instead I address the issue with the non-existing street art. The explanation turns out to be simple:
“There are some walls on the outskirts of Barcelona but it’s forbidden in the city,” says Sara, Sole’s piercing colleague from Sweden at Santa Demonia. “There used to be a lot of it but they banned it a couple of years ago. People came from other countries because they knew it was easy to paint here. It’s just like the drumming in Ciutadella Park. It started off with a couple of drummers every Sunday and then it got bigger and bigger. It was crazy. Now you’re not allowed to bring drums to the park at all.”
Despite the lack of street art, Sole thinks Barcelona is a good art city where a lot of areas have their own character. “There are many small galleries around here with different sorts of art. There’s even a bakery which does artistic pastry. El Raval has a lot of immigrants, so over there, the Arabic influence is big. They have a lot of festivals and the Museum of Modern Art. In El Borne, there are a lot of design and jewellery shops. It’s a bit posh! In El Bárrio Gótico, it’s slightly more commercial and in Grácia there are a lot of artist collectives which do exhibitions. There used to be a few squats there but the city’s made that harder now.” Over the last three years, there’s even been an alternative tattoo convention in Barcelona, in addition to the proper one which has been around for 13 years.
“It’s held in a squat and the money goes to the squatters,” Sole says. “They have bands playing and about ten tattoo artists. It’s not big and the quality isn’t very high but it’s charming and very well organised.”
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