Lisboa Noir

"Lisboa Noir" was the series with which I did my first solo exhibition in Lisbon many years ago. It was also the subject that got me interested in street art and lead me to start the Lisbon Trail project a bit later and meet many of the fantastic artists behind the pieces on the walls. 

Lisbon and Portugal in general is unique in the sense that old building facades are protected and that the city is active in finding walls and sometimes entire buildings for artists from all over the world to make murals on. Besides Sao Paolo in Brazil, I have not heard of any other city that puts so much effort in murals and street art.

This series celebrates the old buildings and the beauty even in decay, together with the artists who beautify these surfaces in every way - from tags to gigantic murals. It also questions the prevailing norms regarding public space and the encroachment of visual space by empty, unsustainable and many times harmful marketing, while true art that beautifies these surfaces is vilified. "Lisboa Noir" and its color twin "Lisboa Noir Revisited" points out that there is beauty in the old and in mural art for the masses. That where street art still exists, commercialism and it's vile sibling gentrification, still has a counterpart.