American gothic
American Gothic is a painting created by American artist Grant Wood in 1930, and here, the two people in black and white with a pitchfork are recreating that painting. However, the man and woman are reversed, and their faces are different. Above, on the left, there’s an image of a woman whose hair transforms into […]
Eat, sleep, rave, repeat
Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat is a song by the band Fatboy Slim, known for their quirky dance music. Raving means partying to house music. On the sticker with the horse, they’ve turned it into “Ride, Eat, Sleep, Repeat.” This could innocently refer to horse riding, but it might also hint at “riding a white horse,” […]
Día de Muertos
It’s a cheerful image with a dark undertone—there are eight skulls visible, and the face of a man who looks startled. In Mexico, on All Souls’ Day, they celebrate Día de Muertos, the Day of the Dead. It’s believed that the souls of children return to earth on November 1st, and those of adults on […]
Indian
I found it an intriguing image when I came across it in Ruzafa, one of the trendiest neighborhoods in Valencia. The boy is dressed in a late 19th-century outfit with a large Native American headdress. It evokes the time when Karl May, a German writer who had never been to America, made “cowboys and Indians” […]
Cartoon
What an incredibly clever idea to tear out pages from Donald Duck and paste them up. A cheap way to wallpaper, and you can look at it for a long time. Cartoonish images have been pasted over it by others. In the top left, the white section—I photographed it deliberately. It creates a nice contrast […]
Berlin
A piece of Berlin in Valencia, “Ernst Kurzhals & Co, Berlin.” A search on Google didn’t reveal much, except that there’s also a similar poster somewhere on a wall in London. Of course, there’s a phone number you can call. I didn’t. I think leaving something invisible, in the dark, and untraceable adds to the […]
Burn
A burned house I walked past on my way to a boxing gym. It’s uninhabited and stands on a corner, decaying in an otherwise trendy neighborhood. To me, it’s a kind of Abstract Expressionism, a Rothko or a Pollock, but created by fire, firefighting, and time. Isn’t that just as intense as how those great […]
Entrada Prohibida
It seems like a cheerful scene, colorful, with a man and a woman in the bottom left corner enjoying a drink. But the building is collapsing, and the beautiful doors are broken and serve no purpose, except as a canvas for the spray paint used on them. The real work of keeping people out is […]
Bicicleta
In Valencia, you have to pay attention to the small details, or you’ll walk right past them. This lady can be found near the Cathedral of the city, but she’s very small. She has a face from a different era than her bicycle. It could well be that the head has been placed on a […]
Jazz
The man’s face looks as though it’s been carved, like we used to do in primary school. Carving in linoleum, rolling ink over it, and then printing. It seems to be the face of a Black man, and near the place where this face is found, there’s also a jazz club. Hence the name: Jazz. […]