Popular culture
Hello my dear friends and readers, lovers of art in any of its expressions; today I come to share with you a mural that for me has been one of the best I have found in my long walk through the streets of Caracas.
This mural is the work of the artist or muralist "Kalaka", you can find it on Avenida Mexico, on the facade of the theatrical laboratory "Ana Julia Rojas" very close to the subway station "Bellas Artes".
Kalaka is a Venezuelan boy, son of foreign parents who came to this country from Chile. When he was young he wanted to change his destiny and decided to study Literature at the Central University of Venezuela. When I say he wanted to change his destiny is because his parents also had the gift of painting, both were artists and therefore their son was supposed to follow in their footsteps, but the boy finally chose a completely different career that led him to become not only a philosopher but to take what he carried in his blood to another plane that catapulted him to success and now his hand has led him to create great works of art.
This artist bases his works on popular culture, especially Mexican culture. Characters with Mexican features, brown skin, and colorful clothing are always present.
Doing a brief research about this artist and his murals I was caught by the thought I found in one of his interviews:
_"breaking the barriers imposed between 'graffiti' and 'guerrilla communication', transcending from propaganda to art" (kalaka).
In our city there is not really an urban artistic culture, many of those who carry out this type of activities do it to reflect something political or to advertise a commercial brand, but there is really no message behind the piece. I think that if more people joined together they could give strength to groups like CMS or Caribe that want to do good work in the cities.
Here and around the world there is talent, Venezuela has talent, we must support street artists to make our city a work of art everywhere.
In the images I present my son Fabian who upon seeing this artistic work could not let it pass and asked me to take several pictures for his personal album.
Kalaka is popular culture, street art, real art.
