Street art: Artistic Expression or Wallpaper for Gentrification?
Local Denver residents explain their experiences with street art, graffiti, erasure of culture, and gentrification.
From Chicano Muralism to colorful backdrops for your Instagram photos, street art has made its mark in Denver. However, where some see art, others see wallpaper for gentrification and the erasure of Chicano culture.
Denver is one of the nation’s fastest-gentrified cities in the nation. While this is evident through the increase in high risers and a decrease in minority populations, street art highly reflects these cultural shifts.
Local Chicano Artist Jeremy Silas Ulibarri explains his experience with gentrification and how art represents the threat it has on a community and the culture.
Ulibarri, who goes by the street name “Jolt,” is one of Denver's most prominent graffiti artists. Jolt has been spray painting since 1993 and is a product of Denver’s historic Latinx neighborhoods.
“My art is born of the community, born of the streets. Therefore it represents that, and it speaks very directly to that, so it’s synonymous with the environment that it’s in,” Jolt said. “It echos the environment at the same time, it’s meant to elevate, celebrate, you know to keep the community looking like the community.”
The North and West sides of Denver are known to have a rich history of Chicano culture, with these areas having a significant Latino population in Denver. Part of this culture is represented by Chicano Muralism. This movement took off in the 70s, leading to the creation of many different murals around Denver painted by Chicano artists to reflect culture and history.
“I’m carrying off the generations of Chicano muralists in Denver, seeing what that art did to represent the communities,” Jolt said. “Chicano murals were an evolution of the people.”
However, as gentrification takes its course throughout Denver, these historic murals are another crucial part of this culture at risk of being erased.
Lucha Martinez de Luna, the founder, and director of the Chicano Murals Project, started this non-profit organization to preserve and protect these historic pieces from gentrification.
“A lot of these early murals were painted during the Civil Rights Movement. One of these reasons there were demonstrations and protests was particularly with the youth because they did not have access to their history,” Martinez said. “So these murals functioned like textbooks for the community.”
One of the main goals of this project is to get these murals protected by the National Register of Historic Places.
According to Martinez, “97% of what is preserved right now and has landmark status or is on the national register represents white men. So that means only 3% of these protected sites represent people of color, the LGBTQ community, or women. Just 3%.”
Martinez started researching and documenting these murals in 2010 when she noticed rapid development in Denver and an increase in removed Chicano murals.
Martinez explained that since many of the murals were painted in disadvantaged neighborhoods, many of the buildings were purchased by developers to be torn down, making the murals a thing of the past.
Juan Fuentes, a photographer and teacher at Colorado High School Charter, also grew up in Denver and noticed these changes.
“I’ve experienced rapid change in the past ten years where everything seems to be taken over in our neighborhoods, and there are just these small pockets that hold on to some of that culture,” Fuentes said. “It’s hard to see something that is very historic and important when you start seeing bland architecture being built up and seeing the city become white-washed.”
One area in Denver where the “white-washing” of neighborhoods is evident would be the Santa Fe Art District on the West side.
This neighborhood, which has a significant Latinx presence, has been labeled an area experiencing “Early/Ongoing Gentrification” by the Urban Displacement Project.
Aaron VG Sutton, an artist volunteering at the Denver Art Society on Santa Fe, said, “This area is considered one of the last authentic neighborhoods. And there’s a huge apartment building that just went up. A lot of these places are victims of gentrification.”
Since these developments have occurred, the cost of living in Denver has increased dramatically.
“As a Denver resident, it’s very hard to remain in a place in the city with real estate being what it is,” said Fuentes.
Jolt expressed a similar concern, “Ken Wolf was a landlord of mine. When I first came across him, I used to rent an art studio from the city of Denver, the city sold it to Ken Wolf, and he raised my rent from $600 to $5,500.”
Jolt, who grew up in Denver, has since moved and now has an art studio in Golden, Colorado.
Ken Wolf is the primary developer behind the changes in Five Points, aka the River North Art District (RiNo), a historically Black neighborhood and now Denver’s fastest gentrifying neighborhood, according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
These changes include growth in street art in Denver, especially in RiNo, where they host annual street art festivals such as Crush the Walls and RiNo Art. During these festivals, artists from all over the country are invited to paint the walls of the neighborhood.
While this seems harmless and arguably beautifies the city, Jolt says that this takes opportunities and ownership away from artists who belong in these communities. He described street art as “wallpaper for gentrification.”
“Street art is relatively a new thing,” Jolt said. “Not to say that these Chicano muralists weren’t creating street art, but it was community art. Art created in the streets for the people to represent the people. Quite often, this street art that these artists are talking about doesn’t necessarily represent the streets it’s even placed in, and the artists that create it aren’t in these streets either.”
The colorful walls of Denver paint a new look for the community. The deceptive craft of street art radiates a booming economy for Denver while painting over a culturally rich part of Denver’s Chicano history.
To hear more about gentrification, check out my podcast, “A Rhino, a Wolf, and a Vulture Walk into a Community,” where I interview Jolt to investigate this issue further.