The Environment Delegate at the Madrid City Council, Borja Carabante, has summoned on Monday to the media to show the punishment that has been applied to a group of six graffiti artists to which the Municipal Police has caught in fraganti Making painted. The gang is lowered from a white van in Juan Muñoz’s square, next to the four -way roundabout. His uniform reminds the EPIs that were seen during the pandemic. They carry shoes White cloth, a blue monkey, protection glasses and mask. They grab some cubes with gray paint and rollers. They are going to cover the graffiti, which cover a wall 85 meters long, but they will have to dedicate several days to do the same in other places. The second option is to pay the fine, which goes from 300 to 3,000 euros, depending on the size of the drawing.
Alberto, who wants to preserve his real name, is one of the sanctioned young people. He is 26 years old and works as a musical producer and giving private piano classes, but he has been leaving walls for years because he helps him disconnect, to flow … not to think of anything ”. Not only does graffiti in the streets, so do it on canvases, but says they are difficult to sell. “Painting a wall is like putting your work directly in an art gallery,” he explains.
when the police caught him by doing a graffiti of a face in a district park in San Blas did not oppose resistance. The fine that came to him was 3,000 euros, but he could switch it with 60 hours of work passing the roller to cover what others, like him, have painted. He did not hesitate to accept it. After all, there are 50 euros an hour. Within the world of graffiti there are certain codes and one of the most important is never painting about the drawing of another person, but Alberto believes that, in this case, “it is understood that it is by obligation.” According to the City Council, nine out of ten sanctioned for this reason value very positively to have the option to commute their fine for this type of work.
The Carabante councilor supervises how the group of boys mixes gray paint with water to make it more liquid before extending it with a roller through the wall. Behind him, more than two dozen journalists from various media. “We look like the Magadascar penguins,” protests one of the young people dressed in the blue monkey before this public exhibition. Carabante comes to talk to him.
“Do you know that the City Council is spent 12 million euros to erase graffiti?” The councilor tells him.
“You could enable free walls where you can paint without consequences.” We are not thieves. The graffiti artists want to have the right to express our art -, the young man replies with the roller of the hand.
María Luisa García, 66, is a neighbor of the neighborhood. The stir that was on Monday in a square that is usually calm. After a few minutes analyzing in contemplative silence what was happening, he has drawn his conclusion: “It is stupid.”
To begin with, he points out that the drawings that are erasing, made on a public wall and not in a neighborhood building, “do not harm anyone” and believes that “there are more important things to spend money.” But his opinion on the matter does not improve when he finds out that the cleaning work that this crew of young people is doing are a corrective to commute his fine. “Hallucino in colors. It is from the last century to say ‘here we introduce you to the punished,” protests.
The delegate of Urbanismo has indicated that it would have been more beneficial for the municipal coffers that young people would pay for their fine, but to make them work is more efficient so that they do not return to recidivize. Carabante has emphasized an alleged difference between urban art, that “which beautifies the city” and that is made by permission from the City Council, of the Grafiti, which considers vandalism and “dirty” the streets. “The important thing is to correct these uncivic behaviors,” he added. Actually, that is not the difference of graffiti and urban art, since both are forms of expression in the street and at their base is not asking anyone’s permission. The difference is that graffiti is characterized by writing and urban art by drawing.
The fight against graffiti was in the electoral program of the PP in the last elections. One of Almeida’s promises was to create a new Municipal Police Brigade aimed exclusively to persecute the graffiti artists, which he fulfilled in early 2024. In total there are 39 agents that located the graffiti artists watching the most critical points of the city, but also analyzing the strokes of each of the drawings.
From January to September last year, the moment in which the Madrid City Council published its balance, 361 sanctions were processed to paint on public roads. Before, the graffiti artists could commute their fine with work for the community, but since the end of 2024 the only alternative to disburseing money is to paint the walls where others like them have reflected their drawings.
