On a recent March evening, the chemical smell of spray paint lingered like a mist in the massive room in La Tabacalera in the heart of Lavapies. A dozen students sat at tables, making precise cuts into thick paper to create stencils, many with intricate designs, to use as patterns to spray paint graffiti on the walls.
Every week, El Keller, an art collective, provides materials to residents to create their own graffiti on the building’s walls. The lessons in La Tabacalera are among a series of daily events held by several art collectives. However, La Tabacerla’s website lists the building as closed as does Madrid’s tourism website, Es Madrid. This is no mistake.
Access is limited to keep La Tabacelera a community spot, made by locals for locals. The regulation of art in the neighborhood has been a growing issue among the residents of Lavapies. The only place where local artists can freely display is inside La Tabacalera. “Many of the artists here are confined to this factory for their art. The real art of Lavapies is here, not what you see in the streets,” said Isabel Carrasco, a Carlos III University art professor who specializes in street art and graffiti.
Adjacent to Madrid's biggest modern art museum, the Reina Sofia, the neighborhood is promoted as an art hub. Many buildings display legal graffiti—urban art projects—painted as a part of Calle, a competitive annual art festival, drawing artists from around the world. For the last decade, tourists, drawn by art and multicultural diversity, have flocked to the area. However, residents feel pushed out of opportunities to express their art—and political discontent—without having to enter the international competition.
“Those art pieces on our walls outside aren’t from us, you have to go inside to see what art we actually create, the stuff the police don’t want you to see,” said another local artist, Gerbos Mad City, who runs a graffiti workshop at La Tabacalera with El Keller.
As the workshop continues behind locked doors, outside a group of German tourists pose to take selfies in front of a geometric, rainbow Nordic dog pasted on the side of the building. They followed detailed art location maps from En Lavapies, an association founded in 2005 to help boost tourism in the neighborhood.
The exterior walls of the famous old tobacco factory are covered by murals pasted in perfect squares along its walls. Bursts of color illuminated by rays of sun revive the life in the pieces of work that have been washed out by a season of rainfall.
As the tourists loudly talked while putting up peace signs and smiles in front of each of the murals, a block or so away, a family walking by glared at them.
The residents are fueled by resentments beyond the curated murals. Yellow flags hang from many terraces, representing the community's feeling of abandonment from the government of Madrid, says NYU Madrid Cultural Studies professor, Cristina Colmena. While the government promotes tourism it does little to help the economic and social issues.
As a result of the government’s tourism initiatives, Lavapies is now considered the “hippie” neighborhood of Madrid, increasing demand for housing and raising the prices for local people.
Although residents can’t legally paint outside walls they manage to show their unhappiness with the increasing gentrification One of the most famous murals in Lavapies is named “El Mono,” translating to “the monkey.” Commissioned by Madrid’s city council, the piece was painted by Okuda San Miguel, known for his colorful, geometrical shapes. In an expression of the community’s distaste for his work, a local vandalized the work adding “yes, the monkey gentrifies” in Spanish. The words remain.