Penelles is an open-air mural museum in the small town of Noguera (between Balaguer and Tàrrega) an hour and a half from Barcelona. This municipality of 500,000 inhabitants is the stage that concentrates a great variety of works by artists from all over the world.
Until 2016 Noguera was not well known, except for the fact that its settlers were engaged in agriculture. But from that year on, he began to be well known thanks to Penelles, a museum that became an international reference for street art.
This great achievement was made possible by the emergence of the Gargar Festival, an annual event dedicated to “street art” and the murals that adorn the town.
The festival is a symbol of hope and a cry for attention. Its name was inspired by the sound of the Iberian sandgrouse, a bird in danger of extinction, as Penelles was some time ago due to rural abandonment.
Running in Barcelona: Carretera de les Aigües
The Penelles open-air mural museum
Penelles is already catalogued as one of the best alternative tourist destinations to which thousands of mural and graffiti lovers flock every year. There you can enjoy more than 100 impressive works of art by great artists from all over the world who cover hundreds of meters of walls with their works, giving magic and splendor.
Strolling through its streets is to live and experience art in the open air. On any corner you go or on any brick facade, you can see spray paintings full of realism and color.
It is estimated that there is one graffiti for every ten inhabitants, a number that no other locality exceeds.
What is clear is that one of the conditions that Penelles places on the participants in the festival is that their works must be a portrait of their rural world. They are expressly requested not to depict religious or political themes, but rather to concentrate on the reality of the environment.
Other tourist attractions in the area
The Penelles open-air mural museum is a must-see setting. However, in Penelles there is not only graffiti. If you want to know the surroundings you can go to the information point of the church from where guided tours are offered. You can tour:
- The Lo Perot brewery that allows visitors to enter their brewery to see how they produce their craft beer and give you the gift of a tasting.
- The Estampart workshop-boutique, which specializes in silkscreen printing and engraving. From there, exhibitions are mounted and works are sold.
- Room B where you will be able to appreciate itinerant monographic exhibitions of murals and graffiti.
- The tiny and ancient parish of the village built between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Its walls have been catalogued as an artistic monument of Catalonia.
