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Lisbon is one of the best cities in the world for street art lovers

Street Art is outdated! – a good friend of mine commented when I blogged about Lisbon’s new status as one of the best streets art cities in the world.

Back then I got a little offended and didn’t agree – today I have come to the same conclusion.

The Urban Vibe is gone. Same is the anarchistic energy that originally took the scene from graffiti tags to larger and more visual pieces with young statements and messages.

Street art is unofficial and independent visual art created in public locations for public visibility. Street art is associated with the terms independent art, post-graffiti, neo-graffiti, and guerrilla art

Wikipedia

Street art is related to graffiti art in that it is created in public locations and is usually unsanctioned, but it covers a wider range of media and is more connected with graphic design

Tate Gallery Musement, 1 July 2020

Public Art is a more suitable label. But even that you can discuss. Every-time I see a wall I can’t help thinking: Would this artist have a chance in a gallery or museum?

Most of the time I come to the same conclusion: Never. More likely an advertising agency or graphic design studio.

What is hard to question is that all the walls we have today’s add a new dimension to a city that would be sad to be without.

It’s just so much much nicer to live and visit places with walls that make you smile, angry, offended or even sad – feelings, emotions and memories you get from good walls. Nobody cares about the grey and miserable walls that are falling apart – like in Lisbon less than a decade ago.

The best way to discover Lisbon's street art?

Universal Personhood, a collaboration between Shepard Fairey (aka Obey and VHILS only 5 minutes from Tings

A lot of people ask about how to discover Lisbon’s street art scene. Most of them just want to see Obey’s wall who – together with Portuguese VHILS – must be the most popular artist in town right now. But we have hundreds of other artists with works that are as least as interesting and beautiful like these two superstars. And there are several ways to discover them. The easiest (but mos boring way) way is to use Google – especially Google Image Search – but that’s too easy. If you are an organized traveler or an Insta traveller who wants to post as many names and walls as possible there are other ways.

Almost all the walls you find in Lisbon are curated by a gallery or an institution. The biggest ones are Underdogs Gallery and Galeria de Arte Urbana – GAU who of course do organized tours – but they focus on their own walls.

Then there are all the traditional tour guide agencies like our French friends at Mon Lisbonne. Besides their guided tours they publish one of Lisbon’s best international culture magazines – Lisboète Magazine – and accordingly knows what’s going on in town. But there are hundreds of others – a good way to find one is through The Tour Guide Portugal portal where you can tailor your own guided tour.

Personally I prefer to let the art com to me – just walk around town and see that hits me. Or as I did during Covid cruised around Lisbon on my bike. That’s how I have found the most fascinating neighbourhoods, people and buildings I didn’t know existed.

The most interesting ones I have blogged about – it has turned into a small series of our Lisbon Street Art picks.

Hope you get inspired

Thomas

Tings Lisbon's Street Art picks

I have visited Lisbon frequently since the mid 90s and lived here since 2014. I have probably been more around town, seen more ‘undiscovered art spaces & places’ and witnessed more tags & walls appearing & disappearing than most tourists and travelers. Not because I am a fan or a specialist – I just love city life & culture. And urban art is an important part of that – like music, food, architecture, sounds etc.

I keep getting mails and comments from friends, hotel guests and followers of this blog about Lisbon’s Street Art scene: About places to go to, guided tours, what we recommends etc.

As the old Latin maxim says: there is no accounting for taste. That’s why we never recommend restaurants, bars, beaches and all other ‘things’ that involves tastes and personal preferences.

But we don’t mind sharing what we like. Instead of personal mails and chats I used our Covid lockdown to kill time blogging about decided to share my personal take on Lisbon’s Urban Art scene in a small series of blog posts – including our favorites.