Picó Sound-System Painting (Colombian Caribbean)

• Give the machine one picture: paint a single central, totemic figure square in the middle of the canvas that covers the speakers, so the composition is symmetric and reads across a dance floor (Néstor Martínez Celis notes that the central figure 'habitualmente condiciona a trabajar una composición simétrica'); set it alone or at the centre of a scene with landscape and perspective around it, and give only the main figure full detail, simplifying the background into colour zones because the open weave of the speaker canvas cannot hold fine lines.
• Make the figure personify the picó's name and its boast, and repaint it when the identity changes (a red cobra for El Rojo, 'la cobra de Barranquilla'; a lion for El Isleño, 'el león de la salsa'), with themes of power, ferocity, luxury and success throughout; crush frogs and snakes under it (slang for gossips and enemies), or let it bite or chase a rival picó's mascot.
• Always pair the picture with the picó's name and a combat slogan (such as 'El tanque de guerra', 'Nunca afloja' or 'El rey de la galaxia') in crushing block capitals, and make the lettering work as the machine's logotype (on the picture itself in the first manner; from Belimastth on, on the secondary speakers and the canvas margins, so text and image are separate); on contemporary split stacks built for bigger crowds, paint the logotype alone on the metal grille instead of a full picture.
• Paint for the night: lay primaries in vinyl, then spray fluorescent, contrasting lacquers and enamels over them on a black ground, never a flat or white one, which does not shine; model the volumes with smooth airbrushed gradients, set golden bodies against the block letters in acid contrasts, add glitter or LEDs if the owner asks, and let the front glow under the neon lights in the cabinet frame at the dance.
• Borrow heroes and power from film posters, record covers and comics (Rambo-like gunmen, superheroes, Stallone's Cobra), from salsa idols, gods and history, or set the scene in outer space with spaceships and science-fiction machines, or in a Caribbean landscape with palms.
• Work to the owner's brief: take the picó's name, theme and reference images from the owner, round out the composition and add the complementary elements yourself, sign it, and leave the rest of the cabinet in coloured formica or in the picó's own identity colour.

The popular barrios of Barranquilla (Carrizal and the south of the city) and Cartagena on Colombia's Caribbean coast, with Soledad, Malambo, Galapa and Santa Marta nearby. Picós (from the English pick-up) date from the late 1930s and boomed in the 1960s and 1970s. The painting of picó speakers is traced to 1967, when Máximo Forero painted the boxes of El Perro in Cartagena (Barriosnuevo, via Sonic Street Technologies). In Barranquilla, Gerson (given as Gerson Acosta and as Gerson Costa) started the trend with a first manner of figures and lettering together on flat grounds in restrained colours. His apprentice Belisario de la Mata ('Belimastth') formed a second, scenic manner in the early 1970s that moved the lettering off the picture, while William Gutiérrez, born in the late 1950s, painted his first speaker at 13 and became the champion of a third manner of dense, psychedelic colour on black grounds. Early picós were painted in sober colours, and Gutiérrez remembers Belimastth's 'El Gran Picasso' as the first neon front he saw. The picós also spread champeta criolla, sung from about 1981; Cartagena's El Rey de Rocha led its spread and, with its label Rocha Discs, recorded its first song in 1993.

1. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pic%C3%B3 (origins in Barranquilla from 1938–1939; boom in the 1960s and peak in the 1970s; the speaker membrane of canvas or cañamazo; pine cabinets clad in coloured formica in red, yellow, green and black; airbrush and mixed technique in vinyl, acrylic, lacquer and enamel; 'kitsch estrafalarios, de colores vivos, fosforescentes y psicodélicos'; beasts, gods, warriors, superheroes, weapons, war machines, futuristic spaceships, Caribbean landscapes, salsa singers; paintings that sometimes satirise rival picós; table of picós, slogans and cities; single-colour identities; El Rey de Rocha of Cartagena, Rocha Discs and champeta criolla, 1993; picós long a culture of the clases populares 'asociados a la marginalidad y la delincuencia'; criticism over noise, fights and violence)
2. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champeta (champeta's origins in the marginal barrios of Cartagena and Afro-descendant areas; the name given by the economic elite to belittle the culture and associated with 'vulgaridad, pobreza y negritud')
3. Néstor Martínez Celis, 'La pintura picotera: arte singular desde el Caribe colombiano', Arte Actual, 25 January 2015, https://arte-actual.blogspot.com/2015/01/la-pintura-picotera-arte-singular-desde.html (Gerson started the trend in Barranquilla; Belimastth's style from the early 1970s; Alsander as William Gutiérrez's teacher; brush and ordinary vinyl, later the airbrush for 'los degradados de los volúmenes'; a layer of primary vinyls under fluorescent, contrasting colours; glitter and LEDs; Celia Cruz, Héctor Lavoe, Cheo Feliciano; 'guerreros, rambos y superhéroes fuertemente armados'; lions, tigers and cobras; palm landscapes; 'título y un slogan o frase de combate' (El Coreano, El Rojo); a central totemic figure and symmetric composition; owner and painter as collaborators, the painter rounding out the composition)
4. Redacción El Heraldo, 'La gráfica picotera reclama su lugar', 14 December 2015, https://www.elheraldo.co/tendencias/la-grafica-picotera-reclama-su-lugar-233442 (Belimastth in Carrizal, an eagle 'de alas grandísimas, voraz y amenazante exhibiendo sus garras en picada', 'cielos rumberos', dripping; José Alexander Lugo Caballero 'Alsanders', El Palladium, more than 300 picós; William Gutiérrez learned from Alsanders; enamel, lacquer sprayed by airbrush, fluorescent enamels; Dairo Barriosnuevo's research from 1993)
5. Amanda Parra, 'Arte picoteril: explosión colorida que viste el sonido', El Heraldo, 20 September 2020, https://www.elheraldo.co/entretenimiento/arte-picoteril-explosion-colorida-que-viste-el-sonido-759855 (early picós in sober colours; Belimastth's 'El Gran Picasso', with neon tones, the first more colourful work Gutiérrez remembers seeing; red, orange, yellow and green became customary; William Gutiérrez painting since the age of 13, El Solista, El Gran Pijuán, El Rojo; Pablo Hernández, airbrush and stencils, El Yanqui; most requested themes are strong, famous characters and portraits)
6. Ignacio Mayorga Alzate, 'William Gutiérrez: maestro de la gráfica picotera', Bacánika, 27 June 2023, https://bacanika.com/articulo/william-gutierrez-maestro-de-la-grafica-picotera (born in Calamar, Bolívar, in the late 1950s; painted shop, billiard and bakery signs; studied and taught painting at university; 'contrastes ácidos entre cuerpos áureos y letras en bloque aplastantes'; 'virilidad hiperbólica'; outer space and science fiction; images taken from record covers and film posters; a neon layer to make the colours stand out at night; owners supply the name and reference images; exhibition at Galería La Escuela)
7. Nicolás Rodríguez Sanabria, 'El Picó, manifestación del folclor de la región Caribe', Cartel Urbano, 13 October 2016, https://cartelurbano.com/historias/el-pico-manifestacion-del-folclor-de-la-region-caribe (El Rojo by Belimastth: devil, three-headed dragon, cobra from Stallone's Cobra; El Conde after Pete 'El Conde' Rodríguez; El Coreano; El Isleño; decoration as marketing and a statement of power, luxury, ferocity and success)
8. Brian D'Aquino, 'SST Colombia Fieldnotes pt.1', Sonic Street Technologies (Goldsmiths, University of London, ERC grant 866239), 23 May 2023, https://sonic-street-technologies.com/?p=2810 (the pintura hand-painted in fluorescent colours and lit during dances, representing the picó's name and identity; cañamazo cotton canvas over the turbo front, rarely over 1.5 x 2 m; the fraccionado, a more contemporary stack adopted to cater for bigger audiences, with a metal grille often painted with a logotype rather than a full artwork)
9. Manuel Nieves, 'Colombian Picó Graphics Vol. 1', Sonic Street Technologies, 13 September 2024, https://sonic-street-technologies.com/colombian-pico-graphics-vol-1/ (poster lettering by self-taught painters who also work for restaurants, bars and other businesses, versus picó painting by specialists in sound-system decoration; identities as animals, heroes or fictional characters; Cartagena posters on yellow grounds, symmetric on a vertical axis, by Los Loros del Cartel and José Corredor 'El Runner'; Barranquilla posters on black card with gradients, outlines and shadows by painters such as Oscar Peña 'Añepracso'; luminous paint advertisements on black credited to Algesan at the beginning of the 1990s, after Barriosnuevo 2012; El Skorpion's posters in two shades of green)
10. Manuel Nieves, 'Colombian Picó Graphics Vol. 2', Sonic Street Technologies, 11 October 2024, https://sonic-street-technologies.com/colombian-pico-graphics-vol-2/ (Máximo Forero and El Perro of Cartagena, 1967, after Barriosnuevo 2015; three trends not tied to particular times: Gerson Costa's figures and lettering on flat grounds in restrained palettes, Belimastth's scenes with landscape and perspective and the name and slogan moved to the secondary speakers and margins, and William Gutiérrez's dense, psychedelic colours over black grounds, 'flat or white backgrounds are not used'; the canvas as a low-resolution medium, with backgrounds simplified to colour zones; neon lights in the box frames; El Coreano by Belimastth on the cover of the LP 'Salsa picotera Vol. 2', 1980; yellow, red, orange, green, fuchsia and blue, blue brightening most under neon; boasting with frogs and snakes, and mockery such as El Príncipe Turbo's tiger biting El Rojo's red cobra)
11. 'Now reading: A new exhibition traces the history of Colombian street parties', i-D, 2020, https://i-d.co/?p=50610 ('PICO: Un Parlante de África en América', Invernomuto and Jim C. Nedd, Auto Italia, London; El Rojo as a red snake, El Isleño as a lion; paintings by local painters)

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