{{Short description|Portuguese street artist}} {{use dmy dates|date=July 2023}} {{Infobox artist | name = Bordalo II | honorific_suffix = | image = Arturo bordalo-1557425478.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = Bordalo II in Vilvoorde, Belgium (2019) | birth_name = Artur Bordalo | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1987}} | birth_place = Lisbon, Portugal | education = | alma_mater = University of Lisbon | known_for = | notable_works = | style = Muralism | movement = Graffiti | relatives = Artur Real Bordalo | awards = <!-- {{awd|award|year|title|role|name}} (optional) --> | signature = File:Bordalo II.png | signature_type = Tag | signature_size = | signature_alt = | elected = | patrons = | memorials = | website = {{URL|bordaloii.com}} | module = }}
'''Artur Bordalo''' (born 1987), known professionally as '''Bordalo II''' (pronounced and sometimes written '''Bordalo Segundo'''), is a Portuguese street artist and self-described artivist. His work consists mainly of large installations and murals made from recycled trash, with the intention of highlighting waste and over-consumption in our world today.
==Early life and education== Artur Bordalo was born in Lisbon in 1987. As a youth, he spent many hours observing his grandfather, a painter called Artur Real Bordalo, (1925–2017).<ref name=sab2022/><ref name=about>{{cite web | title=About | website=Bordaloii | date=26 May 2023 | url=https://www.bordaloii.com/about | access-date=29 July 2023}}</ref> He started doing graffiti art with spray paint on walls when he was 11 years old.<ref name=sab2022/>
He studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts at University of Lisbon in Lisbon for eight years, but never finished the course, instead experimenting with ceramics, sculpture, and other materials.<ref name=about/>
==Career== [[File:Obra de Bordalo II - Coimbra - Portugal (52830926705).jpg|thumb|In Coimbra, Portugal]] [[File:Portugal 090716 Street Art Bordalo II 03.jpg|thumb|In Loures, Portugal]] Bordalo chose the name "Bordalo II" in honour of his grandfather,<ref name=about/> which is pronounced<ref name=sab2022>{{cite web | title=Bordalo II | website=Street Art Bio | date=5 April 2022 | url=https://www.streetartbio.com/artists/bordalo-ii/ | access-date=29 July 2023| format= video (1 min.) + text}}</ref> and sometimes written as "Bordalo Segundo".<ref name=urbanforms>{{cite web | title=BORDALO II | website=Strona główna | url=https://www.urbanforms.org/foundation/artists/bordalo-ii-en-gb/ | access-date=29 July 2023}}</ref>
His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions and mounted in streets across the world, including Singapore, the United States, French Polynesia, and Europe.<ref name=martinhal/><ref name=ip2021/> In the 10 years between 2012 and 2022, he used over 60 (or 115, by another estimate<ref name=martinhal/>) tons of waste materials to create around 200 sculptures of animals.<ref name=sab2022/>
==Art practice and themes== Bordalo's work is focused on the themes of ecology, waste, and recycling, and makes use of garbage in his work as a method of critiquing over-consumption in the world.<ref name=urbanforms/> Using materials such as old tyres, pieces of wrecked cars, discarded appliances, plastic waste, and aluminium cans, he challenges materialism and consumerism in the modern world.<ref name=sab2022/> He describes himself as an artivist.<ref name=ualgarve2021/>
==Projects, exhibitions and notable works== Bordalo's international project ''Big Trash Animals'' is a series of installations featuring huge images of animals created from rubbish. The project spanned many European cities, including Lisbon, Barcelona, Dresden, Hamburg, and Tallinn, with the first of these in Łódź in Poland, in August–September 2015.<ref name=urbanforms/> The sculpture in Łódź is the largest of the series, consisting of a large swallow on a building facade. Others in the series include a giant bear in Turin, Italy, and, in Portugal, a crab in Ericeira, and a fox and a frog in Lisbon.<ref name=feed2018>{{cite web | title=Bordalo II | publisher=Jerónimo Martins World Magazine| website=Feed | date=14 December 2018 | url=https://feed.jeronimomartins.com/waste/bordalo-ii-one-mans-treasure/ | access-date=30 July 2023| quote=#6, "Waste" Edition - Dec. 2018}}</ref> ''Big Trash Animals'' was also created in North America and Latin America.<ref name=sapo/> The idea of creating animals with trash is to highlight the destruction of species by waste caused by humans.<ref name=sab2022/>
His next project was a large exhibition with his work scattered throughout the city of São Paulo in Brazil.<ref name=sapo>{{cite web | title=Bordalo II instala em Vimioso dois murais dedicados ao burro de Miranda | website=SAPO | date=16 February 2023 | url=https://www.sapo.pt/noticias/atualidade/bordalo-ii-instala-em-vimioso-dois-murais_63ede345b8e73776c97a2971 | language=pt | access-date=29 July 2023}}</ref>
One of his public sculptures of animals is the huge ''Plastic Mero'' (representing an Atlantic goliath grouper), created from marine debris and installed in 2019 on the seafront in Funchal, Portugal.<ref name="'Plastic Mero'">{{cite web | title='Plastic Mero' | website=Atlas Obscura | date=5 July 2022 | url=http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bordalo-ii-plastic-mero | access-date=30 July 2023}}</ref> Another is a huge Iberian lynx in the Parque das Nações, a district of Lisbon, which he created for the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth in 2019 and Youth Forum Lisboa+21.<ref>{{cite web | title=A huge cat sculpture at Park of Nations in Lisbon, Portugal | website=Local Guides Connect |first=Roman| last=Ahmmed| date=19 July 2021 | url=https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/General-Discussion/A-huge-cat-sculpture-at-Park-of-Nations-in-Lisbon-Portugal/td-p/2996585 | access-date=30 July 2023}}</ref>
In ''Railway Series'', in Portugal, Bordalo used train tracks, painted in bright colours.<ref name=sab2022/>
For a 2018 exhibition which travelled to Las Vegas, U.S., called ''Wild Wild Waste'', there was a whale caught in fishing nets, a lion caged in a truck, and four penguins surrounded by rubbish.<ref name=feed2018/>
His 2020 work, ''Lighted Jelly Fish'', from the ''Big Trash Animals'' series,<ref>{{cite web | title=Bordalo II | website=Bordaloii | date=26 May 2023 | url=https://www.bordaloii.com/news/lighted-plastic-jellyfish-in-europa-building-for-the-portuguese-presidency-semester-in-the-eu | access-date=30 July 2023}}</ref> was exhibited at the Europa Building in Brussels during the semester of the Portuguese presidency of the EU, later becoming part of the European Parliament's Contemporary Art Collection.<ref name=ip2021>{{cite web | title=Bordalo II | website=IP: Why Not | date=24 October 2021 | url=http://ipwhy.europe.bg/en/node/493 | access-date=30 July 2023}}</ref>
In April 2021, two sculptures of seahorses were unveiled at the Gambelas campus of the University of Algarve in Faro, Portugal.<ref name=ualgarve2021>{{cite web | title=Inauguration of the sculptures by Artist Bordalo II | website=University of Algarve | date=8 April 2021 | url=https://www.ualg.pt/en/inauguration-sculptures-artist-bordalo-ii | access-date=30 July 2023}}</ref>
''Magellanic Penguins'' was created for the Portuguese Pavilion in the Expo 2020 in Dubai, which ran from October 2021 until March 2022, and in July 2022 his work was exhibited in Singapore.<ref name=ip2021/>
In August 2022, Bordalo created his first mural in the state of Texas, in the form of a {{convert|64|ft|order=flip| adj=on}} mountain lion on a wall of a building in downtown El Paso.<ref>{{cite web | last=Chavez | first=Brianna | title=World-renowned artist to build mural with trash downtown | website=KVIA | date=4 August 2022 | url=https://kvia.com/news/el-paso/2022/08/04/world-renowned-artist-to-build-mural-with-trash-downtown/ | access-date=29 July 2023}}</ref> An exhibition of his work titled ''EVILUTION'' was mounted in at Edu Hub Lisbon from October to December 2022.<ref name=martinhal>{{cite web | title=Bordalo II: The artist behind EVILUTION | website=Martinhal Residences | date=21 September 2022 | url=https://www.martinhalresidences.com/bordalo-ii-the-artist-behind-evilution/ | access-date=29 July 2023}}</ref>
In July 2023, shortly before a scheduled visit by Pope Francis, Bordalo broke into one the venues where he would be celebrating a mass, and laid out his latest creation - a huge carpet composed of giant 500-euro banknotes. His intention is to highlight how much has been spent on the event – an estimated 161 million euros – by the Portuguese Government (30 million euros), the Catholic Church, and Lisbon and Loures city councils.<ref>{{cite web | title=Portuguese artist rolls out banknote carpet to slam state spending on Pope Francis visit | website=ABC News (Australia) | date=29 July 2023 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-29/portuguese-artist-rolls-out-banknote-carpet-to-slam-pope-s-visit/102663560 | access-date=29 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=India-Japan script an expanding partnership for a shared future | website=The Economic Times | date=26 July 2023 | url=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/startups/india-japan-script-an-expanding-partnership-for-a-shared-future/articleshow/102139039.cms | access-date=29 July 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | last=Demony | first=Catarina | title=Portuguese artist rolls out banknote carpet to slam pope's visit costs | website=Reuters | date=28 July 2023 | url=https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/portuguese-artist-rolls-out-banknote-carpet-slam-popes-visit-costs-2023-07-28/ | access-date=30 July 2023}}</ref>
==Other activities== Bordalo supports Portuguese refugee advocacy organisation Humans Before Borders, which helps to fund five medical NGOs working in refugee camps on the Greek islands of Lesbos and Samos.<ref name=sab2022/>
==In film== A short documentary film entitled ''Bordalo II: A Life of Waste'' was released by the Irish Film Board in 2017.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}<ref name=ip2021/>
==Gallery== <gallery> File:Lisboa - Portugal (31490938258).jpg|Frog, Lisbon (2018) File:Street art (44845411874).jpg|Fox (''Lis''), Lisbon (2018) File:Lisbon (49423465693).jpg|Bee, Lisbon (2019) File:Funchal, Praça CR7 - Plastic Mero by Artur Bordalo a.k.a. Bordalo II.jpg|''Plastic Mero'' (Atlantic goliath grouper), Funchal (2019)<ref name="'Plastic Mero'"/> File:Big cat is big (52132560303).jpg|''Lince Ibérico'' (Iberian lynx), Parque das Nações, Lisbon (2019) File:The Hoopoe by Bordalo II Santarem 02.jpg|Hoopoe, Santarém, Portugal File:Street Art (48440155531).jpg|Raccoon, Lisbon </gallery>
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== * Langens, Joke; Timmerman, Dirk (2022). "Trash and the City: Bordalo II and His Big Trash Animals". Ch. 10 (pp. 184-205) of ''10 Lisbon Stories''. Casa das Letras. {{ISBN|978-989-661-443-0}}
==External links== *{{official website|https://www.bordaloii.com/}} *[https://beyondwalls.org/artists/bordalo-ii/ Bordalo II] at Beyond Walls, an organisation promoting public art in Massachusetts *{{IMDb title|qid=Q123517683|title=Bordalo II: A Life of Waste}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bordalo, Artur}} Category:Living people Category:1987 births Category:Portuguese artists Category:Portuguese graffiti artists Category:People from Cascais Category:Date of birth missing (living people) Category:University of Lisbon alumni Category:Environmental artists Category:Portuguese activists