Montana LOOKBOOK #08 / 2023

From tag to piece, the
Migrantes Valientes
(Brave Migrants)
message increases
its significance.
MC
When you started graffiti, did you come up in the usual
graffiti contexts of getting a tag, doing throw-ups and
pieces, and then trying to improve and perfect your
craft on walls or trains? Or did your focus on migration
take hold of you from the beginning?
for it. Mexico City was practically clean back then and
very few marks on the walls could be seen, though
graffiti actually first arrived via Los Angeles, California
(in my knowledge) around 1990-1991 in impoverished
areas outside of Mexico City such as Ciudad Netzahualcoyotl.
That place was quickly renamed in the graffiti
scene as Neza York for the large amounts of graffiti you
could find there. I would make expeditions from the
other extreme of the city at the age of 14 to document
what I could find. I would then develop the films and
copy the tags and throw ups and few pieces on paper.
It’s important to highlight that no internet existed at the
time so hardly any information would flow as it does
today. It was very hard to find graffiti in the city and
every time something appeared before my eyes, I would
snap it and cherish it like a gem. The way I lived graffiti
in the 90’s like many others belonging to that generation
and before that was that graffiti was kind of a secret and
to find out anything about it was not easy at all.
MC
In your formative years, was there a graffiti mentor or
leader working at a level that you were inspired by and
aiming to reach?
PA
During the first years of discovering graffiti, I did not
really have a specific graffiti inspiration except magazines
that I would collect. I tried to collect every single
graffiti magazine that came out like Fat cap, While you
Were Sleeping, 12 Oz Prophet from the USA, Back
Jumps, On the Run and Backspin from Germany or
Xplicit Graffix and Molotow Coctail from France etc…
but my real buzz came when I could get my hands on
Graphotism from the UK due to my connection with that
country.
In the year 2000 I met Ekla, a Parisian graffiti
writer who had migrated to Mexico to live and paint. He
was the one who really had an impact on my interest in
graffiti and taught me the basics and more on how to
paint metros etc.
PA
I started in the same traditional way as most do; initially
by defining my name after attempting other names.
Then throw ups, pieces etc. Most of the names I previously
used were connected to black metal bands since I
was heavily interested in that music genre. My first
names were Rocker, Venom, Burzum and Mayhem.
Once I was able to feel comfortable with the name I still
use today, later on I discovered where freight trains
were parked and used to watch people travel on them. I
had no clue that they were migrants coming from
Central America. This is going back to 1999 when I first
encountered migrants on the trains. My graffiti partner
and friend who still goes by the tag of Meek would throw
rocks at them as he explained that they were enemies.
During the first years of discovering
graffiti, I did not really have a specific
graffiti inspiration except
magazines that I would collect.
Meek was associated to a Mexican gang from
the USA called Sureños 13 and was all about protecting
his barrio. I had nothing to do with that culture and since
I came from a different social background and environment,
I had not been exposed to this violence that
prevailed in that area of Mexico.
Although my vision in graffiti was always kept
to aesthetics, I often remember writing messages
against the war that took place in Iraq in 2003 onwards,
pieces in support of rebel movements like the EZLN
which protects the rights and autonomy of indigenous
communities in the south of Mexico (mainly in the state
of Chiapas) or of the students movement in Mexico City
who were fighting to protect the autonomy and free
education for all.
MC
Are any of those former graffiti pursuits relevant to your
graffiti practice today?
PA
Indeed. I actually defined them and split them into two
now. I love painting graffiti for aesthetic reasons and a
little bit of an ego burst feels good every now and again.
64 Artist in focus/Interview Pablo Allison