Art Is Trash vs. Daniel Spoerri

 

Chaos urbain et « tableaux-pièges »

Art Is Trash et Daniel Spoerri partagent un point commun essentiel : ils travaillent avec des objets trouvés. Pourtant, leurs univers artistiques sont profondément différents. L’un est ancré dans l’énergie anarchique et éphémère de la rue, l’autre dans le cadre structuré mais expérimental de l’avant-garde européenne d’après-guerre. Tous deux interrogent notre rapport aux objets du quotidien, mais avec des intentions, des méthodes et des environnements radicalement opposés.

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Technique – Assemblage de guérilla vs. tableaux-pièges

Art Is Trash (Francisco de Pájaro) crée ses œuvres directement dans l’espace public, en récupérant des meubles cassés, matelas, cartons ou appareils abandonnés. Il y peint des visages grotesques et humoristiques, puis les arrange en interventions tridimensionnelles dans la rue. Son travail est rapide, spontané et en dialogue direct avec l’environnement urbain.

Daniel Spoerri, quant à lui, est célèbre pour ses tableaux-pièges : des œuvres où il fixe des restes de repas, assiettes et couverts sur une table avant de l’accrocher verticalement. Ces compositions figent un moment précis, transformant une scène ordinaire en image permanente. Son processus est réfléchi : les objets sont stabilisés, conservés, et présentés dans un espace d’exposition.

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Matériaux – Déchets urbains vs. objets domestiques

Chez Art Is Trash, le matériau brut est le déchet lui-même. Le fait que l’objet ait été rejeté fait partie intégrante du message.

Chez Spoerri, les objets ne sont pas forcément des déchets : ce sont des éléments de la vie quotidienne, souvent en cours d’utilisation. Ses tableaux-pièges conservent des compositions accidentelles — un repas interrompu, un désordre de travail — comme un instantané figé.

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Message – Satire sociale vs. capture du réel

Art Is Trash livre une critique sociale tranchante. Ses sculptures dénoncent le consumérisme, la culture du gaspillage et la marchandisation de l’art. En réintroduisant des déchets dans l’espace public sous forme d’art, il interroge la valeur que nous attribuons aux objets.

Spoerri se concentre moins sur la critique que sur la capture et la préservation d’un moment. Il transforme un agencement fortuit en œuvre d’art, invitant le spectateur à prêter attention à ce qui passe souvent inaperçu.

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Environnement – Rue ouverte vs. espace contrôlé

Art Is Trash agit dans un espace imprévisible, exposé aux passants, aux intempéries et aux aléas de la ville. Ses œuvres sont conçues pour être découvertes par hasard et disparaître rapidement.

Spoerri, lui, travaille dans des environnements maîtrisés : ateliers, galeries, musées. Ses pièces sont faites pour durer et être revues encore et encore.

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Permanence – Éphémère vs. artefact durable

Les œuvres de Art Is Trash sont délibérément temporaires. Elles peuvent disparaître en quelques heures, soulignant l’éphémère de la culture matérielle contemporaine.

Les créations de Spoerri sont conçues pour traverser le temps. Ses tableaux-pièges sont conservés pendant des décennies, véritables archives d’un instant précis.

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Stratégie – Provocation de rue vs. positionnement historique

Art Is Trash utilise des tactiques de guérilla : pas d’autorisation, pas d’annonce préalable. Son art est une intrusion volontaire dans le quotidien urbain.

Spoerri, figure centrale du Nouveau Réalisme, inscrit son travail dans l’histoire de l’art et dans les institutions. Ses œuvres dialoguent avec celles d’autres artistes d’avant-garde et trouvent leur place dans le canon artistique.

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Conclusion – Deux manières de donner une nouvelle vie aux objets

Art Is Trash et Daniel Spoerri sauvent les objets de leur fonction initiale et leur donnent un nouveau sens. Mais là où Spoerri fige la scène pour l’éternité, Art Is Trash la laisse vivre — et mourir — dans la rue.

Chez Spoerri, l’instant est conservé comme dans l’ambre ; chez Art Is Trash, il est libéré pour se dissoudre à nouveau dans la ville.

Street Chaos Meets the “Tableaux-Pièges”

 

Art Is Trash vs. Daniel Spoerri 

Art Is Trash and Daniel Spoerri both work with found objects, yet their artistic worlds are profoundly different. One is rooted in the anarchic, ephemeral energy of the streets, while the other emerged from the structured yet experimental context of post-war European avant-garde movements. Both challenge our relationship to everyday objects, but they do so with very different intentions, methods, and environments.

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Technique – Guerrilla Assemblage vs. Tableaux-Pièges

Art Is Trash (Francisco de Pájaro) creates his works directly in public spaces, scavenging discarded furniture, mattresses, boxes, or broken appliances. He paints bold, grotesque faces onto them and arranges them as three-dimensional street interventions. His works are quick, spontaneous, and exist in direct dialogue with the city’s physical and social environment.

Daniel Spoerri, by contrast, is best known for his tableaux-pièges (“snare pictures”) — artworks where he fixed leftover meals, plates, and cutlery to tabletops and then mounted them vertically. These works capture a specific moment in time, freezing a scene in place. Spoerri’s process is deliberate: the objects are stabilized, preserved, and moved into a gallery or museum setting.

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Materials – Urban Waste vs. Everyday Domestic Objects

Art Is Trash uses urban refuse as his raw material. His art is inseparable from the fact that the objects were thrown away — the trash is part of the message.

Spoerri’s objects are not necessarily trash; they are ordinary domestic items, often mid-use or mid-disorder. His tableaux-pièges preserve the accidental arrangements of life — a meal in progress, a cluttered workspace — as if pinning a butterfly in a frame.

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Message – Social Satire vs. Freeze-Frame of Reality

Art Is Trash delivers sharp social commentary. His sculptures satirize consumerism, waste culture, and the commodification of art. By reintroducing garbage into the public sphere as “art,” he asks why some objects are valued while others are discarded.

Spoerri’s message is less about critique and more about capturing and preserving reality. His work freezes a specific, fleeting arrangement of objects, turning an accidental composition into a permanent artwork. It’s less a protest than an invitation to notice the unnoticed.

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Environment – Public Streets vs. Controlled Spaces

Art Is Trash operates in the open, unpredictable environment of the street. His works are subject to weather, theft, and the whims of passersby. They are meant to be encountered by accident and disappear quickly.

Spoerri works in controlled environments — studios, galleries, and museums. His works are designed for preservation, allowing viewers to revisit the frozen moment over and over again.

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Permanence – Fleeting Interventions vs. Lasting Artifacts

Art Is Trash embraces impermanence. A piece may last only a few hours before it’s dismantled or removed. This temporality is part of the meaning: it mirrors the throwaway culture he critiques.

Spoerri’s works are meant to last. His tableaux-pièges are carefully conserved, sometimes decades old, serving as lasting documents of a particular moment in time.

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Strategy – Street Provocation vs. Art-Historical Positioning

Art Is Trash uses guerrilla tactics — no permission, no pre-announcement. His art is an ambush in the everyday urban landscape.

Spoerri, a central figure in the Nouveau Réalisme movement, positioned his work within the art world’s institutions, engaging in dialogue with other avant-garde artists. His work was experimental, but it was also carefully contextualized in the art-historical canon.

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Final Thoughts – Two Ways to Give Objects New Life

Both Art Is Trash and Daniel Spoerri rescue objects from their normal functions and assign them new meanings. But where Spoerri captures and preserves a scene forever, Art Is Trash lets it live — and die — in the streets. Spoerri’s works are deliberate, archival, and reflective; Art Is Trash’s are raw, chaotic, and confrontational.

One fixes a moment in amber; the other sets it free to dissolve back into the city.

Straatanarchie tegenover de koning van de Pop Art

 

Art Is Trash vs. Andy Warhol Barcelona

Wanneer je Art Is Trash en Andy Warhol naast elkaar zet, vergelijk je twee kunstenaars die, ondanks hun totaal verschillende werelden, één belangrijk gemeenschappelijk punt hebben: ze hebben allebei opnieuw gedefinieerd wat kunst kan zijn. Maar hun methoden, materialen en strategieën zijn compleet verschillend. De één werkt in de vluchtige chaos van de straat, waarbij afval wordt omgevormd tot tijdelijke sculpturen, terwijl de ander een blijvend imperium opbouwde met gepolijste, herhalende beelden uit de populaire cultuur.

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Techniek – Afvalassemblages vs. perfecte zeefdrukken

Art Is Trash (Francisco de Pájaro) werkt direct op straat. Hij verzamelt afgedankte meubels, oude matrassen, kartonnen dozen en zelfs kapotte apparaten, en verandert deze in groteske, humoristische figuren. Zijn werken, vaak snel geschilderd met karikaturale trekken, nemen de ruimte in als echte sculpturale installaties, bedoeld om maar kort te bestaan.

Andy Warhol daarentegen werkte met de techniek van de zeefdruk, waardoor hij strakke, kleurrijke beelden in series kon produceren — van Campbell’s Soup-blikjes tot portretten van Marilyn Monroe. Waar Art Is Trash unieke en geïmproviseerde werken maakt, creëerde Warhol zorgvuldig berekende, herhaalbare en commercieel herkenbare kunst.

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Materialen – Straatafval vs. commerciële beeldtaal

Bij Art Is Trash is het materiaal ook de boodschap. Afval vormt zowel de basis als het symbool van zijn kritiek: wat de maatschappij weggooit, wordt kunst.

Bij Warhol kwamen de beelden uit reclame, productverpakkingen en foto’s van beroemdheden. Door ze in een galerijcontext te plaatsen, verhief hij massabeelden tot cultureel icoon. Beiden werken met het alledaagse, maar de één gebruikt ruwe, gevonden objecten, terwijl de ander kiest voor de gepolijste esthetiek van de massamedia.

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Boodschap – Sociale satire vs. spiegel van consumptiecultuur

Art Is Trash levert een directe kritiek op consumentisme, de wegwerpcultuur en de commercialisering van kunst. Door te werken met wat wordt weggegooid, stelt hij de vraag waarom sommige objecten waardevol worden geacht en andere niet.

Warhol is dubbelzinniger. Zijn werk weerspiegelt de consumptiemaatschappij, maar laat in het midden of dit kritiek of juist een viering is. Door producten en beroemdheden te herhalen, vervaagt hij de grens tussen reclame en kunst.

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Omgeving – Straat als podium vs. galerieruimte

Art Is Trash werkt in de onvoorspelbare openbare ruimte. Zijn werken reageren op het weer, voorbijgangers en de chaotische stedelijke omgeving. Ze zijn gemaakt om toevallig ontdekt te worden en snel weer te verdwijnen.

Warhol creëerde voor galeries, verzamelaars en de kunstmarkt. Zijn werken zijn bedoeld om bewaard en getoond te worden in gecontroleerde omstandigheden.

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Duurzaamheid – Vergankelijk vs. tijdloze iconen

De creaties van Art Is Trash zijn bewust tijdelijk: ze kunnen binnen enkele uren of dagen verdwijnen, wat de boodschap over de vergankelijkheid van dingen versterkt.

De werken van Warhol zijn gemaakt om eeuwen te overleven — zowel fysiek (door de gebruikte techniek) als cultureel. Zijn “Marilyns” en Campbell’s-blikjes zijn nog steeds wereldwijd herkenbaar.

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Strategie – Guerrillakunst vs. merkopbouw

Art Is Trash werkt als een guerrillakunstenaar: spontaan, afhankelijk van gevonden materialen en plekken.

Warhol bouwde een merk rondom zichzelf. Zijn studio The Factory werd een symbool van seriële kunstproductie, mediabelangstelling en de vermenging van kunst, beroemdheden en commercie.

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Conclusie – Twee verschillende revoluties

Andy Warhol nam massale consumentenbeelden en verhief ze tot kunst. Art Is Trash neemt wat de consumptiemaatschappij heeft weggegooid en brengt het terug in de openbare ruimte om ons anders te laten kijken.

Warhol staat voor strakke lijnen, felle kleuren en museale status. Art Is Trash staat voor vieze stoepen, geïmproviseerde materialen en creatieve chaos. Beiden stellen vragen over waarde, roem en de objecten waarmee we ons omringen — maar de één doet dit vanaf een galeriewand, de ander vanaf de stoep naast een vuilcontainer.

Difference

 

The Difference Between the Work of Obey and Art Is Trash

Street art has many voices, each shaped by personal history, material choices, and how the artist confronts public space. Two influential names—Shepard Fairey, known as Obey, and Francisco de Pájaro, known as Art Is Trash—represent almost opposite poles of the movement. Both use the street as a stage, but their messages, methods, and materials create very different experiences.

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Obey: Iconography and Political Messaging

Shepard Fairey, born in South Carolina and based in Los Angeles, is best known for his Obey Giant campaign and the HOPE poster of Barack Obama. His style is graphic, clean, and deeply influenced by propaganda aesthetics—Soviet posters, punk flyers, advertising layouts.

• Mediums: Fairey works with wheat-pasted posters, large-scale murals, stencils, and screen prints. His production often spills into galleries and commercial design.

• Message: His art speaks in slogans and icons—“Obey,” “Peace,” “Power,” “Justice.” The goal is not just humor but a deliberate political provocation, often tied to anti-corporate and social justice narratives.

• Longevity: Though originally illegal street posters, Obey’s work has become highly collectible and permanent. Murals are commissioned, prints are editioned, and pieces are archived in major museums.

In short, Obey’s universe is designed, controlled, and intentional—aimed at broadcasting a clear political signal to the largest audience possible.

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Art Is Trash: Ephemerality and Human Fragility

Francisco de Pájaro, born in Zafra and based in Barcelona, approaches art from the opposite direction. Under the project name Art Is Trash, he transforms discarded furniture, garbage bags, and cardboard boxes into temporary street sculptures with painted faces, limbs, and grotesque expressions.

• Mediums: Trash, tape, cardboard, and marker are his palette. His art is built in minutes, intended to vanish within hours.

• Message: Instead of slogans, Art Is Trash offers humor, absurdity, and empathy. A pile of rubbish becomes a flirty character; a broken chair, a weary figure. The social critique is implicit—consumerism, waste, and mortality—but filtered through tenderness and comedy.

• Longevity: His work resists permanence. Only photographs remain, circulating online. The disappearance is part of the meaning: art, like life, is temporary.

Art Is Trash’s world is messy, emotional, and improvised—a conversation with the street and its rhythms of disposal and renewal.

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Side by Side: Obey vs. Art Is Trash

Aspect	Obey (Shepard Fairey)	Art Is Trash (Francisco de Pájaro)
Origin	United States, graphic design background	Spain (Zafra/Barcelona), performance & painting roots
Medium	Posters, murals, stencils, prints	Trash sculptures, quick drawings on discarded objects
Style	Bold, clean, propaganda-inspired	Grotesque, humorous, improvised
Message	Political, ideological, anti-authoritarian	Human fragility, consumer waste, absurd comedy
Lifespan	Semi-permanent, institutionalized	Ephemeral, disappears quickly
Afterlife	Museums, galleries, limited prints	Photos, social media, memories

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Why Both Matter

• Obey shows how street art can enter the cultural mainstream, influencing politics and mass media while still carrying a subversive edge.

• Art Is Trash reminds us of the fragility of both art and life, offering street encounters that are poetic precisely because they vanish.

Together, they map the spectrum of street art: from iconic permanence to playful impermanence. Obey is about what endures; Art Is Trash is about what slips away.

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Explore more

• Obey Giant official site: obeygiant.com

• Art Is Trash official site: artistrash.es

• Instagram Art Is Trash: instagram.com/artistrash

• Stories Art Is Trash: instagram.com/stories/artistrash

• Pinterest Street Art Barcelona: Street Art Barcelona Board

• Blog updates: Barcelona’s Street Art – Blog

sculptures

 Street Art Sculptures

Street Art Sculptures and the Work of Francisco de Pájaro (“Art Is Trash”) from Barcelona

Street art sculptures are the three-dimensional cousins of murals and stencils—works that turn pavements, bins, lampposts, cardboard boxes, and broken furniture into temporary stages. Unlike bronze monuments or gallery installations, these pieces are improvised in public space, assembled fast, and allowed to disappear. They live briefly, circulate online through photos, and then return to the flow of the city. Nowhere is this practice more vivid than in Barcelona, where the street artist Francisco de Pájaro—better known by his project name Art Is Trash—has spent years transforming discarded objects into mischievous, moving characters.

What makes a street art sculpture?

At its core, a street art sculpture is site-specific, ephemeral, and assembled from everyday matter. It can be as simple as a pair of spray-painted eyes on a bulging trash bag or as complex as a stacked tableau of pallets, chairs, and cardboard cutouts wired or taped together. Three features define the form:

1. Material honesty: The sculpture exposes what it is—trash, packaging, broken appliances—rather than hiding it. The point is transformation without erasure.

2. Speed and tactility: Works are built in minutes, with tape, string, zip ties, or found hardware. The artist’s hand is visible in the slapdash seams and handwritten expressions.

3. A short life: The city’s cleaning cycles and weather act as co-authors. The piece isn’t meant to endure; its disappearance is part of the message.

Because of this, street art sculpture sits at the crossroads of performance, photography, and design: it is made to be seen here and now, and remembered later.

The grammar of materials

Street artists who sculpt the street speak a common material language:

• Cardboard & paperboard: Easy to cut and draw on, perfect for faces and speech bubbles.

• Bags & textiles: Give bodies weight and volume; when stuffed, they suggest bellies, muscles, or heads.

• Furniture & fixtures: Chairs, drawers, and lamps become limbs, torsos, or props.

• Adhesives & fasteners: Duct tape, masking tape, twine, cable ties—the “joinery” of the street.

• Marker, latex paint, aerosol: For eyes, grimaces, blush, and the quick humor that animates the pile.

This grammar is accessible. Anyone can read it. That accessibility is why the form resonates with passersby who smile, snap a photo, and keep walking with a slightly changed perception of the block.

Ethics, ecology, and the choreography of the city

Street art sculpture carries a built-in ethical loop. It reuses waste, inviting a critique of consumption without wagging a finger. It also respects public maintenance: the piece will vanish by design. A thoughtful practitioner avoids blocking pathways, damaging property, or creating hazards. The city, in turn, “curates” by deciding what stays for an afternoon and what goes in an hour. In this choreography, sanitation crews, rain, and curiosity become collaborators.

Case study: Francisco de Pájaro—Art Is Trash

Francisco de Pájaro is a street artist born in Zafra (Extremadura) who works from Barcelona and around the world under the project name Art Is Trash. His sculptures are not solemn memorials; they are cheeky, vulnerable creatures conjured from what the city has thrown away. A black garbage bag becomes a crouching figure; two chair legs, a pair of mournful antennae; a cardboard flap, an open mouth. With a few marker lines and a strip of tape, de Pájaro injects emotion—tiredness, lust, shame, pride—into objects that were minutes away from oblivion.

The look: comic, grotesque, tender

De Pájaro’s characters carry a comic-grotesque charge: big teeth, droopy eyes, long lashes, sticky tongues. They’re funny until they aren’t; the humor slides into an uneasy empathy. We laugh at a flirty trash bag and then recognize a human posture, a bit of ourselves. This oscillation is crucial—his work critiques excess and waste while insisting on tenderness.

Process: scouting, assembly, release

A typical Art Is Trash intervention unfolds in three stages:

1. Scouting: He reads the street like a material map—where are the piles? What shapes are latent in them? Where is the light? Where will someone turn a corner and see it?

2. Assembly: Fast joins, bold lines, a quick coat of paint. He often articulates eyes first; once the piece is “looking back,” the character dictates its own pose.

3. Release: Documentation (often a single, decisive photograph) and then letting go. The piece lives on the walk, in a passerby’s feed, and finally as a memory.

Themes: consumption, shame, joy, resilience

Art Is Trash is a parable machine. A collapsed dresser becomes a tragic hero; a tower of fruit crates, a swaggering diva. The joke is visual, but the subtext is social: we buy, use, discard; we mask, desire, perform; and then we, too, are weathered by the city. The sculptures stage these cycles with a humane wink.

Barcelona as studio—and beyond

Barcelona’s textured neighborhoods—industrial edges, narrow Gothic lanes, the open light of Poblenou—give de Pájaro a versatile stage. Yet the language travels. In London, Naples, New York, or São Paulo, the grammar of bins and boxes remains legible. The works are self-translating; what differs is the accent of local trash and the rhythm of the cleanup crews.

The digital afterlife

Because the sculptures are fleeting, photography and social media function as the gallery. The single frame—composition, context, passerby—becomes part of the artwork. A post can reach thousands who will never meet the original pile of cardboard. This afterlife is not a consolation prize; it’s central to the work’s ecosystem, where circulation and conversation are as important as the instant on the curb.

Why street art sculptures matter

1. They re-sensitize our attention. By animating the ignored, they sharpen how we see everyday space.

2. They model circular thinking. Reuse is a material ethic and a metaphor for cultural repair.

3. They democratize art-making. The barrier to entry is low; the threshold to delight is even lower.

4. They accept time as a collaborator. Weather, maintenance, and city life are not enemies—they complete the piece.

How to experience them responsibly

• Look and leave: Enjoy the work in situ; don’t remove or “adopt” its parts.

• Photograph with context: Include the street and passerby scale; that’s part of the piece.

• Share credit: When posting, name the artist if known (e.g., Art Is Trash) and the city or neighborhood.

• Respect the flow: If cleaners are doing their job, that, too, is part of the artwork’s life cycle.

For curators and cities: working with ephemerality

Institutions often struggle to “collect” what refuses permanence. Instead of forcing durability, think programming, documentation, and facilitation:

• Commission time-bound interventions with clear custodial windows.

• Exhibit photo/film documentation alongside fragments or replicas that explain process rather than pretend permanence.

• Support public workshops that teach the grammar of reuse and quick assembly.

• Align with circular-economy initiatives so the artwork’s ethic resonates beyond culture into policy.

A brief artist note

Francisco de Pájaro (Art Is Trash) is a Barcelona-based street artist, born in Zafra, celebrated for transforming discarded materials into witty, empathetic characters. His practice foregrounds the dignity of waste, the theater of public space, and the poetry of letting go—inviting cities and citizens alike to see differently, consume less, and feel more.

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Explore more

• Official site: artistrash.es

• Instagram profile: instagram.com/artistrash

• Instagram stories: instagram.com/stories/artistrash

• Street-art inspiration board: Pinterest: Street Art Barcelona

• Local context & updates: Barcelona’s Street Art – Blog

vor 13 Stunden

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ART IS TRASH / Francisco de Pajaro (@artistrash) • Instagram photos and videos

vor 13 Stunden

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ART IS TRASH / Francisco de Pajaro (@artistrash) • Instagram photos and videos

vor 15 Stunden

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