Jenaro de Rosenzweig’s relationship with street art began when he was living in Barcelona. When he moved to Berlin, he began making his own stencils. But it wasn’t until he returned to his native Mexico City that he started filling the streets with his own Star Wars art. Rosenzweig saw that D.F. was already decorated by street art, but that no one knew whose art it was.
“I returned to Mexico in October 2012, and I realized that in Mexico there was a lot of art but no one knew where it came from, or who drew it,” he told Buzzfeed. “On March 7, 2013, it occurred to me to start a fan page so that I could share street art with my friend Alex, who I met in Barcelona, and we went through the streets taking photos with our smartphones and we saw that it had pull.” He also installed an API to search for the hashtag #streetartchilango on Instagram, so to help him and Alex source art, and see where people were finding it. Eventually, as Fusion reported, the fan page grew into “an online platform powered by Google Maps, allowing users to upload photos and geolocate street art in real time by simply tagging Instagram posts with the hashtag #streetartchilango.”
https://instagram.com/p/5c0AtWzLKz/?taken-by=jenaro_visualcraft
The project expanded from there, and this year, Rosenzweig started his own Star Wars street art. He wanted to work with something that was well recognized, which he mixed with Mexican pop culture. Though some references specifically cater to Mexicans, such as the tire-repairing Jawas working at a talachería, others are broad enough for anyone to understand them. Rosenzweig still has plans for a Yoda selling tamales Oaxaqueños, and Chewbacca locked inside a parking lot.
Check out some photos of his pieces below, and track the latest in Mexico City’s street art on streetartchilango.com.