Wherever you look in Buenos Aires there is graffiti on the walls. This ranges from tagging (where kids spray paint their name), New York style graffiti (where they decorate their names) to political slogans or protests, and what is now being called 'street art' by those in the know - murals and stencils which has increased in popularity and numbers over the last 10 years in BA. It's interesting to wander round and see what you can spot, but we were interested to know a bit more background so took a tour with Graffitimundo (www. graffitimundo.com). Our guide, Melissa, studied Art History in the US, and has been working with the UK founders of graffitimundo for the past couple of years.

BA has always had a history of political graffiti until the military dictatorship of the 1970s put a stop to it. It began a resurgence following the economic crisis of 2001, although the style was not political graffiti, but large, colourful cartoon like paintings designed to cheer up the people of Buenos Aires when up to 1 in 5 Argentinians were out of work. This trend has continued and the paintings are much more pop or cartoon art based rather than political, angry graffiti that you see elsewhere in South America.

Graffiti in BA is illegal but the artists are largely ignored by the police - before the elections political graffiti appeared all over the city, and some of it was paid for the main candidates so there is a lot of vested interest in not clearing it up. Because the artists can work without fear of being arrested it means that they can do bigger, brighter pieces of work - groups setting up on a Sunday afternoon with all their materials along the pavement to collaborate on a wall is common. In fact some of the work we saw was commissioned by the home owners themselves - a piece of street art tends to detract from ugly tagging which may otherwise cover a private property.

Banksy type stencilling is also big in BA. Following the economic crisis, when materials were costly and hard to come by some enterprising artists went to the local hospital and were given patients x-ray films to make stencils from. Not something you can imagine the NHS giving away without a big uproar in the Daily Mail… The ability to work on pieces for longer has led to new styles - Jas, another well-known artist who paints inspired by the raw passion and animal-esque violence of Bas football supporters, has started trying to create watercolour style works using mud, charcoal and petrol which are surprisingly durable.

There seems to be an unwritten rule set about the art, but most of the artists aren't precious about the work. The ones done on public property are just that - public property - so they walk way and don't come back to touch things up or get angry if others decide to paint over the top. Some pieces can last for 6 months, but there is new work appearing all the time. In fact we were lucky to drive past Eva, another one of the well-known artists in north BA, set up and working on a new mural on a private property. He guessed it would take him 3 days to finish the piece, and the biggest hassle he has was not from the police but from locals walking past and stopping to ask questions about what he was doing etc. etc. In fact some of the artists have started working at night to be able to work in peace…

I am not an arty person - despite living in London I can't remember the last time I went to a gallery to look at paintings (at a push I will go and look at photographs) but the graffiti mundo tour was fascinating and showed us a different side to BA - not many tours will take you to a suburban bus garage - and gave us new insight into what we had seen all around us since arriving in BA. Definitely recommended!