Porno 14 from Buenos Aires – Interview

Even if the graffiti scene in Buenos Aires is fairly young it has developed in a excitingly fast rhythm over the last years. The follow the western traditions by bombing streets and metros, but, with a quite different attitude. They same way that European graffiti in its first years followed in the footsteps of the United States, Buenos Aires also has took the “old country” as an example to follow. Who better than Porno14, one of the city’s most prolific bombers, to show us the context of the Buenos Aires graffiti scene from his point of view. And since we are with him we start out with getting to know him a bit better before we start this truly interesting travel though the history of Argentinian graffiti.Can you remember the first time you saw graffiti?
A long time ago as a kid I remember going back home from school and I always passed by this newspaper stand which was closed down. On the shop there was a sign in white, a bit transparent, and you could see that it had been there for quite some time. I obviously didn’t understand then that this was a tag, and I thought of it as some kind of symbol or sign for something. I tried to decipher what it said.. I saw an R, some type of N, but I never got to know what it really said. This started my restlessness. Months later I managed to figure out what it said and see that it said RAS.

Why did you decide to start painting?
I didn’t really deice to start painting, I went a school with drawing classes and one thing led to the other, and one day I was sketching letters, without even thinking about it.

How do you define your way of creating graffiti?
I don’t know how to define it, free, a bit trashy, I never searched for any specific form in my pieces, I sincerely don’t know, but along the years I have had focus on more abstract designs. I always tried to see things in a quite different way. If for example we painted a spot were there wasn’t enough space for my letters I found a way to adapt my letters to the space given. If the spot had obstacles like doors or profundities, I had to find a way to make it come together and fit. Maybe a lot of people just don’t even try when they are confronted with such uncomfortable surfaces and spaces, but me it was always like a game within itself to be able to adapt. Read the whole interview here