“I write graffiti because my head and my heart demands me to write. Because I wake up and I go to bed with graffiti in my mind. Because it’s the only thing that makes me forget my problems and my sadness completely. Because it makes me happy.”
-Mister Dheo, Portuguese Graffiti Writer.

Portugal: home to ancient ports, ornate cathedrals, old-time cobblestone streets, and some of the most amazing graffiti in the world today. I stepped off of the bus into Lisbon on a sunny day in autumn, and I was immediately absorbed into the grandiose scene that spread out all around me. I felt as if I had stepped back in time, everywhere I turned I saw the amenities of an ancient stone world, but covering it all, was the luminous shout of the modern age- bright, bold, and extremely well done- graffiti.

All through Lisbon, bright tags emblazon 400 year old porticos, magnificent contorted faces dance upon the high white walls of ancient ports, and highly artistic three dimensional action scenes are spray-painted within the ebb and flow of old-time Portugal. As I walked through this living museum- which concurrently had on display historic relics and modern street art- I realized that I wanted to dig deeper into this contradiction and excavate the world of the Portuguese graffiti artist. I wished to learn how they transformed a cold, stone city into a living, breathing work of art, as well as discover the inner motivation which drives the graffiti artists to risk liberty and limb to display their art so publicly. My mission was to find these silent painters of the night, so that I could hear- in their own words- what graffiti means.

To hear the unspoken messages which scream inaudibly from every piece of graffiti in Lisbon, I met with a writer who goes by the name of Odeith on a brisk Saturday afternoon. He picked me up at the front gate of a giant shopping mall in a shiny black BMW. We were able to identify each other without difficulty, as we both have tattoos that creep out from our clothing and cover our hands, fingers, and necks. We shook hands jovially, and I immediately chided him about his seemingly prestigious choice of vehicle. He laughed and then quickly assured me that his BMW was over 15 years old and worth more separated into spare parts than in its present drive-able condition.

“So, what are you doing? What do you want to know about graffiti?” he then asked me as we jumped into his car and right into the content of my interview.

“I want to know about the philosophy behind graffiti; I want to know what it means and what it communicates.”

“Alright, man,” Odeith then said with a deep smile and a nod of his head, “I will show you my Hall of Fame.”

At this, we turned a corner and drove on through the outskirts of Lisbon. As we rode passed a few middle class neighborhoods, Odeith taught me a little about the social circumstances that he grew up in. “I live in the ghetto,” he said, and then continued to tell me how he had to leave school when he was fifteen to help his father with his furniture business. Odeith told me that his neighborhood, called Cova Moura, is similar to the slums of Rio de Janeiro. I had a difficult time accepting this, as my previous travels in Portugal did not reveal many abject signs of economic disparity to me. But as I listened to Odeith speak, I got the feeling that I was being taken through a gate to the other, darker side of Portugal.

I then asked Odeith how he began doing graffiti, and he told me that his first tastes of the art was, like most graffiti artist, through bombing- illegally painting in various public spaces. “Every weekend we just painted three, four cans on the lines [corridors where the trains run], you know. . . For two years I was dedicated to the silver . . . Then I began thinking about bigger pieces.” And likewise, Odeith’s Hall of Fame- a collection of graffiti murals on a large wall- was born.

As we approached the area of his Hall of Fame, which is on a towering stone wall that surrounds a grade school, Odeith explained that we had entered the frontier between middle class Lisbon and the slums. On one side of this colorfully painted barrier was a pleasant seeming urban suburb, and on the other side was the hill that harbors the infamous ghetto of Cova Moura. Odeith’s graffiti wall- his Hall of Fame- essentially acts as the gateway into the under-side of Lisbon; a warning sign and bold declaration of the horrors that you will find on the inside.

Odeith parked his car on the brink of this frontier, and we approached his masterpiece on foot. The shear magnitude of this stone canvas was behemoth; it was more than 12 ft high and stretched for over 150ft in one direction just to turn a corner and go on for at least 150 more. Most impressive of all, was the fact that this mammoth structure was covered from bow to stern in bright, highly detailed, and immaculately well-done graffiti. I was overcome with shock as I got closer to this surreal monstrosity. It was alive, the paintings moved and breathed harsh tales about the daily struggle for existence. There were wildly painted, cris-crossing letters, realistic faces of women crying and men with big cigars, and illustrations seemed to jump off the concrete to pull you into the stories that are perpetually acted out upon the wall. Odeith was proud of his creation, and he excitedly explained to me how he painted it and what it all means:

“What I like about graffiti is the message. If you enter into the ghetto you see things that most of the people do not see. They are just roaches. Most of the people are just roaches. I try to give a message. If an MC can say something into a mic to the people, you can paint it on a wall. You paint on a wall to show something.”

In his Hall of Fame, Odeith shows us a window into his life on the other side of the wall; of life in the desperate, covered up and ignored ghetto of Lisbon. He then directed my attention to a section of the wall that stands directly above the path up the hill to the Cova Moura ghetto.

“As Baratas Alimentam-se Dos Nossos Restos Nós Dos Restos Do Planeta”- The Cockroaches feed themselves on our leftovers, we on the leftovers of the planet- was written in big letters above a scene of frightening urban decay. “The roaches feed on our leftovers, we feed on the leftovers of the earth. What makes us less disgusting than the roaches?” Odeith ominously restated. He then told me how he wants to paint a large cemetery in the middle of his Hall of Fame, “because no matter what side of the wall you are from, we all end up in the same place.” Odeith then reflected for a moment before continuing,“You know what is a shame, man, for most of the people they only see the corner and what colors I use; they don’t see my feelings, they don’t see the ghetto, they don’t see the kids with drugs.”

So I asked Odeith if we could walk together through the ghetto, so I could get a better idea of what he was talking about and where he came from. He seemed pleased with my interest in his neighborhood, and led the way passed his wall and into the world on the other side. Here the streets were merely dirt-paths, and were lined with shabbily made, discordant houses, broken down cars, and drug-addicts buying fodder for their maniacal habits. Odeith took me around this beaten down community and showed me a few of his graffiti pieces. One was a mural of the rapper Tupac, and served as a memorial to nine kids from his neighborhood who were either shot by the police or other kids. This truly was a world apart from the clean and orderly city of Lisbon, which stretched out in all directions below us. Odeith’s wall was really the gate between two separate realities, and he, the gate-keeper, was treated here as the King of this gutter.

But many people in the city have a difficult time realizing the beauty of graffiti, and it is illegal in Portugal. In lieu of this fact, artists either have to do hurried, quickly-done bombed pieces in the cloister of night, find obscure places to paint where they will not attract attention, or work with the communities that they wish to display their art to obtain permission from land-owners. The Porto based writer, Mr. Dheo, says that, “In Portugal, city councils don’t support graffiti, they don’t care about graffiti artists, they just want to stop graffiti vandalism. So the only way for you to grow up as an artist and have opportunity to work is to try to legalize walls for your own. I use to knock on doors with my portfolio and try my luck.” Odeith’s Hall of Fame was also done with the permission of the land-owner and the enthusiastic support of the local community. “The people love it,” Odeith says in reference to his masterpiece, and this sentiment is reflected by that fact that the people who live immediately adjacent to his wall donated over $350 so that he could purchase paint and supplies. Eskema, another Portuguese graffiti artist, would often take a different route to finding space to paint, and says that, “Most of them [his murals] are illegal, but I always manage to find a quiet, semi-abandoned place where I probably won’t be bothered.”

There are obviously very mixed feelings in Portugal about graffiti. The old Lisbon neighborhood of Barrio Alto is almost 100% covered with bombed, illegal graffiti, and many people in the city want to clean it up. “Graffiti is considered vandalism and destruction of property,” Eskema explains. To this point, Mr. Dheo adds that “. . . it’s obvious that a lot of people don’t like it [graffiti]. Those are the older ones, who don’t understand it, who are not open minded and can’t even separate art from vandalism.”

I pondered these points as I was talking with Odeith, and I asked him what the common people of Portugal think about graffiti. “Do you know Barrio Alto?” he asked me, “Everybody hates it [graffiti] there. But to me it is a newspaper on the walls. Most of the people hate that bullshit. ‘That graffiti, that graffiti’ [they say] . . . To me it is a newspaper. I am reading right now who is in the town, who is more up, who is down. . .if I go to drink some beer in Barrio Alto, people there are talking about football or soccer or something on the TV and I am reading . . .you can tell who is more patient, who is more crazy, it is like a newspaper.”

As I returned to my room in Barrio Alto later that night, I took a detour so I could walk through the graffiti strewn streets and really think about what it all means. I tried to read the walls as if they were a newspaper, and I found that there are hidden stories told through each piece of graffiti that the general populous- who only sees scribbled lines and vandalism- could only conjecture. These are the stories of a people without a voice, and a can of spray paint is the only way they can make their feelings known. Their shouts cannot be heard, but the potent images of their art is forever thrown into the face and scrawled upon the city walls of the status-quo that keeps them entrapped in the nameless gutters of society.

Portuguese graffiti is a deep form of art that serves as an ominous reminder that we are walking in the dawning days of the twenty first century- a reminder that we live in a world that is still full of problems and disparities. Graffiti is a message that cries out for us to venture through the gates to the other side of the wall: to realize that we live in a world that is raw, unpolished, and beautiful. Graffiti also delivers potent messages which rise up from the gutters of Portugal and demands to be heard. In essence, graffiti is the voice of the of the streets.

For more information on Portuguese Graffiti and the artists mentioned above, please visit the follow websites:

Odeith the Illusionist
Mr. Dheo
Eskema Stage 3
Art Crimes
Photos of Graffiti in Portugal

A special thank you also goes out to the artists- Odeith, Mr.Dheo, and Eskema- and Susan from Art Crimes for their invaluable help. This ragged vagabond thanks you from the bottom of his heart.

Thank You,

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Lisbon, Portugal
December 3, 2007

“For it is only apparently cocks that are fighting there. Actually, it is men.”
-Clifford Geertz, Notes on the Balinese Cockfight

Men cheer, birds squeal, and the evanescent smell of blood permeates the squalid air as the last glimmers of life are stoked out of an uncomprehending, instinctual ruined rooster. I am at a cockfight in Honduras, and the mania of men in cowboy hats and shiny boots battling their cocks in public is almost too much metaphor for my humor to bear. It is too real to be funny.

The men run, jump, and scream as their prize cocks peck and spur each other to death in fits of animal frenzy. The men too, become beast as their murderous howls cheer on the glorious victories of the winners, and their sorrowful wails accompany the dying breathes of the losers. Some cheer, some weep, but the money is always exchanged with the cold face of a better. A cockfight is a life or death battle that strikes the cords – which resonate to an astonishing volume – of some buried, primal human urge:

“The madness has some less visable dimensions, however, because although it is true that cocks are symbolic expressions or magnifications of their owner’s self, the narcissistic male ego writ out in Aesopian terms, they are also expressions – and rather more immediate ones – of what the Balinese regard as the direct inversion, aesthetically, morally, and metaphysically, of human status: animality.” -Clifford Geertz, Notes on the Balinese Cockfight

Perhaps the cockfight is the great un-doer of man’s acculturation. But the men seem to enjoy the raw stripping down of their outer social layers and leaving their masculine components stark naked. Men are never more men than at a cockfight. It is said that it is culture alone that is the very thin line which separates the men from the cocks. But I think men would be more comfortable without it. The roosters do the deeds for man egos, they show us who is up and who is down. . . and they are cheaper than a sports car.

The cockfight makes us beast again. It certainly seemed this way as I stood up against the crowded ring. I found that I, too, was sucked up into the excitement of the fight. Beating wings and shanked off feathers and dust making clouds in the air. For some reason this combat excited me. The dire yells and screams that came from all directions momentarily awakened a singular strain of madness within me. I felt animal again.

A couple of American girls who seemed to harbor rather politically correct leanings walked into this melee of cocks and death. For all of the leanings of their moral compasses, they could not suppress their curiosity, and came to the cockfight knowing exactly what to expect. They were proved correct: cockfights are full of cocks. But perhaps, they too, wanted to watch something get hacked to death among blood curling woops and wails. But the first match quickly sickened their sensibilities, or perhaps their interest in such a vile event arose a sense of fear within them, and they left the ring. “We had our experience,” they spoke as they made their hasty retreat. I also knew that I was there for the experience alone. After watching the first rooster get torn to pieces and admitting defeat with a deathly lowering of his head, I knew that this blood-sport was but a novelty for me. It was something that I would not need to watch again.

So I figured that I would stay and watched the fights into the afternoon in order to make the best of the novel experience. I also paid a whopping $5.50 to get in, and was determined to get my money’s worth. I did.

I watched as two cocks, who were previously weighted and classed, were chosen from the kennels. These bold gladiator birds went to the ring without hesitation. I could only wonder if they could sense what was to come. The bets were now collected, and the men settled into their positions around the crowded ring. They seemed to be more nervous than the roosters who would soon be ripping each other limb from limb. Three inch razor sharp spurs were then attached to the legs of the roosters. These Hondurans, like cockfight enthusiasts the world over, seem to find excitement in the swiftness of mortality that the artificial spur allows. The cocks were then angered and otherwise prepped to fight by their handlers: who would blow on them, ruffle their feathers, pull their tails, and hold them within striking range of other roosters. This raises the plume of these Shanghai cocks sufficiently enough to kill, and they are now ready to fight.

The cocks were then taken to opposite sides of the ring, as it was left vacant except for the two handlers, two roosters, and a judge. There was not a sound anywhere around the ring. A bell goes off. As the tenseness of the moment was broken the roosters charge into combat. Spectators cooed with excitement. The cocks, spurring each other out of instinctual rage, did battle in the unescapable enclosure. This was a fight to the death. The only way for a cock to win is if it kills its opponent dead. As Clifford Gertz wrote:

“In the cockfight, man and beast, good and evil, ego and id, the creative power of aroused masculinity and the destructive power of loosened animality fuse in a bloody drama of hatred, cruelty, violence, and death.”

After a few bloody rounds a winner, or rather a loser – as both birds are usually battered beyond recognition – emerges. A once erect, proud, and vociferous cock now sits spent in a pile of blood and discordant feathers. The “winner” hobbles dizzily over his slain foe a moment before its handler picks it up with a cheer. The razor spurs racked injuries to both combatants, but only one was lucky enough to have been the dealer of the fatal blow. He was carried off as an unknowing hero amid a chorus of incomprehensible cheers. The ring is washed with bloody water, and two more cocks are chosen, another round of bets are cast, and two more sets of spurs are attached.

A nervous crowd pushes in close to the ring, a bell sounds, and men agan transform themselves into cocks.

An over-worn double entendre would not do.

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Copan Ruinas, Honduras
March 19, 2008