Pablo Ochoa de Olza, urban artist: “Graffiti is art, not dirt”

Pablo Ochoa de Olza (Pamplona, ​​56 years old) remembers as a teenager painting quickly on walls and doors in his hometown. They were lines and scribbles with which he showed the furious feelings of any 16-year-old boy. Since then, he has made spray compatible with pencils, inks or paints wherever he found a space to talk about his feelings. His life and work have been displayed on the walls of cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, ​​New York, Ecatepec (Mexico) or Medellín (Colombia). Father of four children and married to Marta Arzak (deputy director of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao), few things please him more than researching and studying, a desire that has led him to become a restorer of ancient art and a programmer of painting robots.

Ask. He has just opened an exhibition at the Flecha gallery in Madrid and has plans to participate in other forums [Arturo Soria, Art Madrid]. Have you stopped the graffiti?

Answer. Everything I did when I was young is now urban art. Techniques change or are enriched. Now, for example, I use transparencies [pintura acrílica sobre vidrio templado], but everything is equally authentic. It is pure and there is no profit motive when you are creating it.

Q. But on the exterior walls there is no business and in the twenty works that we see in this room there is business.

R. Clear. I am the same, whatever I do and what I like most is to open paths that have not been traveled by others.

Q. How could we define graffiti today?

R. As always. Some characteristics would be that they are spontaneous acts on large formats. [paredes, trenes, túneles], the strokes are fast and energetic and speak of the anguish of the moment. And it is ephemeral art because it depends on the whim of authorities, owners and atmospheric situation.

Q. One of the transparencies on display represents an urban scene that occurs in the Raval, in the space where MACBA takes out its garbage. The cubes are “decorated” with graffiti and some basic urban art techniques such as stickers. You write that there is often more art outside than inside the museum. Making friends for possible exhibitions?

R. I don't intend to make friends. But let's also think that they should reflect before throwing garbage on the urban views in front of them. If someone graffitied on the interior walls of the museum, surely nothing would happen. If it's outside, we have a problem.

Q. Is graffiti always art?

R. Always. Unless it is done for decorative purposes, then it is not. Sometimes we see entire walls painted, but they have been paid for by merchants and even by town councils. I insist, that is not art.

Q. Is graffiti persecuted the same everywhere?

R. No. In Berlin, for example, it is difficult to find a little space to put something, no matter how small. They can't delete it. The problems began with Edward Koch, when he was mayor of New York in 1982. He declared war on graffiti and most Western city councils organized “anti-graffiti brigades.” While they persecute the graffiti artists, they avoid addressing issues that do concern them, such as pollution, crime, marginalization, homelessness, prostitution or drug trafficking. Because of him, wonderful works by Hambelton, Haring, Basquiat, Banksy, Jonone, JR, Vihls, Os Gemeos and millions of others have disappeared from the streets.

Q. How do they eliminate them?

R. Ignorant leaders order their workers to destroy it with sandblasting machines or gray paint applied with a roller. If someone used those methods on works at MoMA or the Guggenheim Museum, he would end up in prison.

Q. What do you think of Bankski?

R. Banksy is the Leonardo or Picasso of our days. The guy is very big. As a street artist he has the merit of knowing how to apply stenciling or stencils [técnica que consiste en usar el aerosol de pintura sobre una plantilla determinada a partir de la que puedes reproducir la imagen las veces que quieras]. It treats the most dramatic and urgent topics differently from the rest. Two years ago we learned from the press that Banksy had bought a ship called Louise Michel, like the French feminist anarchist. She had set sail secretly from the port of Burriana and her mission was to rescue emigrants at sea. They also say that she has a hotel in the West Bank where she provides shelter and care to Palestinians, but everything in it is shrouded in secrets.

Q. Fewer women's names are known than men's names in street art.

R. There are more women in legal art than in illegal art. There are some fantastic ones, like Larry, the little rat from Malasaña.

Q. Would you like to see your work in a museum?

R. I'd love to. I don't think there has been any major exhibition dedicated to graffiti. I have researched for a long time and it is material that no one has collected to have perspective.

Q. Have you surveyed any museums?

R. Yes. I have spoken about it with the directors of the Guggenheim and the Fine Arts of Bilbao. Let's see if we are lucky.

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