Camilo Fidel López’s leftist parents groomed him to save the world through the law. Instead, the 38-year-old Colombian is trying to do it with street art.
OGOTÁ, Colombia — Camilo Fidel López eats, drinks, thinks, sleeps and breathes graffiti.
Where the average eye sees empty and drab building walls, Mr. López, the founder of the graffiti artists crew Vértigo Graffiti, sees blank canvases, opportunities to colorfully further the cause of social justice, whether in his home city — the Colombian capital, Bogotá — or the rest of the world.
Looking younger than his 38 years, sporting a scruffy beard, wearing jeans and an untucked casual shirt, he was constantly on the move recently crisscrossing Bogotá, which has become one of the world’s top graffiti destinations.
A few days later he was wandering the cobblestoned back alleys of Cartagena, a historic coastal Colombian city that is also famous for its graffiti art. And several months later he was still on the go — this time in Turkey with his crew.
Not a graffiti artist himself, Mr. López plays multiple roles: art director, business manager, promoter, negotiator, lawyer, entrepreneur, festival producer, even tour guide. He is, in addition, a professor of entertainment law and cultural industries at the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogotá.
He refused to give himself a job title. “My job is to start conversations,” he said succinctly, in one of the few times he was succinct.
He now plays a key role at the forefront of a street art revolution that reflects his nation’s new face of pride and self-expression.