ARCHIVED - Caravaca graffiti artist decorates Santa Pola Osborne bull “à la Picasso”

The Guernica motifs in Santa Pola are intended as an anti-bullfighting statement

The Caravaca-based graffiti artist who calls himself Sam3 has made a great impact with his latest offering, which consists of “decorating” the iconic Osborne bull advertising hoarding in the Alicante municipality of Santa Pola with images taken from Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece “Guernica”.

Guernica was painted to commemorate the atrocious bombing of the town of the same name in the Basque Country in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, an event which occurred 80 years ago last month. However, it was not until 18th May that Sam3 converted the Santa Pola bull into his own personal protest against the legality of bullfighting in Spain, publishing his work on social network sites along with the comment “Bullfighting is for cowards. Reverence to Picasso”. 

This is being taken by some to be an act of vandalism, and certainly the Osborne company are likely to object, but there is some debate among locals over whether or not the recreation of Guernica should be painted over. The Town Hall has pronounced itself in favour of letting Sam3’s work stay as it is, but rightly points out that in the end it will be Osborne who decide, and who will foot the bill for any “repair” work required.

Osborne bulls have become synonymous with Spain and the Spanish identity, but were born as an advertising campaign in 1956 for brandy de Jeréz, which sparked a nationwide bull building frenzy, with a herd of 500 animals spread across Spain. The first were made of wood and measured only 4 metres, and were placed next to Spanish highways in 1958, but deterioration due to the weather meant their replacement by metal structures 7 metres high starting in 1961.

However, in 1962 a law was passed which made it illegal to place the bulls within 125 metres of the road, to which Osborne responded by doubling the height of the bulls to 14 metres and searching for prominent places to put them.

In 1988 it became illegal to advertise alcoholic drinks on Spanish roads, so many of the bulls were removed and the word "Veterano" was also taken off, leaving the bulls purely as symbolic sculptures, overlooking the landscape from their privileged viewpoints.

In 1994, Parliament declared the bulls to be “an element of national cultural and artistic heritage” and in 1997 the Supreme Court recognised the social, cultural and artistic symbolism of the Osborne Bull, raising it to the category of “national symbol.”

Image: EFE (fully copyrighted)