An inspiring source of all kinds, the figure of Diego Armando Maradona has multiplied in street art with various works throughout the country, some of which are impressive, which transform Argentina into an open-air Maradonian gallery.
The immense murals inaugurated in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA) on the occasion of the anniversary of the star’s birth, which will be celebrated tomorrow, have given a new twist to the symbolic force of his sacred image.
Chief, hero, warrior, legend, saint, angel … how many forms of recreation of popular myth exist? The Argentine walls, from Jujuy to Tierra del Fuego, between the mountain range and the Atlantic Ocean, express part of that infinite diversity.
Maradona, born on October 30, 1960, died on November 25, 2020 and since then the tributes testify to his omnipresence in the collective memory of the Argentines.
With a federal gaze, Télam has created a selection of works dedicated to the Ten for the montage of the photo gallery that accompanies this text:
* City of Buenos Aires
“The largest Maradonian mural in the world”, the work of the famous urban artist Martín Ron, will be presented this Sunday at 4 pm on Avenida San Juan, at Solís, in the Constitución district of Buenos Aires. After 25 days of working with seven other muralists, Ron captured an impressive 45x40m image on the wall of a party building using 800 liters of paint.
The work, sponsored by the joint-stock company YPF, reflects the idol in his starring role with the blue jersey of the Argentine team used at the Italy ’90 World Cup, the one that played his battered physique but with admirable courage in front of a club The public who did not do so was spared the elimination of the “Azurra” in the semifinal at the San Paolo stadium in Naples, which today bears the name of the Argentine legend.
* Province of Buenos Aires
In the municipality of Canning, a fraction of Esteban Echeverría, the famous muralist Maximiliano Bagnasco showed his talent in 40 × 12 meters to portray a Diego with the expression of a hero, wearing the “albiceleste” shirt, on a modern building next door at Viale Mariano Castex (provincial road 58).
The painting is located in the back of the structure with the logic that it can be appreciated by passengers arriving or departing from Ezeiza International Airport, located a few kilometers away.
With the same intention, in the Italian Sports Stadium, next to the Teniente General Pablo Riccheri motorway, the main access road to the airport, there is also an image of 10 in his time as a Napoli player.
Bagnasco has a repertoire of works by Maradona, which also offers as a recent creation a 12-meter mural in the Italian city of Pompeii, located about 25 kilometers from Naples.
The artist gained notoriety during the first year of the star’s death when he exhibited a series of paintings by Diego, in different phases of his life, on the perimeter of the gastronomic walk “El Patio de los Lecheros”, in the Caballito neighborhood.
*Rosary
Grupo Artistas Leprosos immortalized Diego as a Newell’s Old Boys footballer on a wall in the FONAVI neighborhood, located on Seguí y Rouillón avenue, in the southwest of the city. He is part of a series of representations linked to the Parque de la Independencia club, with a strong presence in the area.
That work would have opened with a party on July 16, but the act was suspended because, the day before, two of its creators were killed by two strangers who were riding a motorcycle.
* Santa Fe
Local tattoo artist Gustavo Ibarra captured the image of a Maradona shrine, another of his kisses at the World Cup in Mexico ’86 and Diego’s famous signature on a black background wall in via Huergo, almost General Paz, in the center -west of the city of Santa Fe. The works were carried out in January 2021, two months after his death.
* Mendoza
Marcia Fozzatti Mailhos and Candice Abad, two young artists from Godoy Cruz, painted a mural in Mendoza that pays homage to Maradona with his beginnings at Villa Fiorito and his triumph as a footballer in the Argentine national team.
For their work they have chosen one of the walls of the Sports Center n. 6, which bears the name of the football star, on Calle Arenales and Isla de Los Estados in the city of Maipú. It was inaugurated in December 2020, shortly after Diego’s physical departure.
* Tucuman
Maradona and his immortal kiss at the World Cup, in a pop-art aesthetic, on the wall of a soccer field in the southern district of San Miguel Tucumán.
* currents
On a wall in via Lisandro Segovia, in the capital Corrientes, the work “Diego Eterno” represents the 10 Argentines with angel wings. It is a self-managed creation that Graphic Design graduate Aldo Andrés Cardozo Morelli completed in eight hours, five days after his death.
Other murals around the country
