Muelle

Juan Carlos Argüello (23 September 1965 - 1 July 1995), known as Muelle, was a Spanish graffiti artist from Campamento, Madrid.

Career
Around 1980, during the Madrilene cultural Movida, Argüello started reproducing the logo he had designed on walls and public spaces of Madrid. It consisted of the word Muelle (Spanish for "spring"), or an R with an enclosing circle (®) and a line in the shape of a coiled spring ending in an arrowhead. At first, he used an ink marker and later spraypainted his signature extensively around Madrid (and to a lesser extent, in other Spanish localities). In the eighties, he improved his technique, using several colours in a technique labelled relleno, wider borders known as grosor, and 3-D effects.

Influence
His innovative style, along with the profusion of his tags, made his work popular. Many other Madrilenian youths, known as flecheros created their tags inspired by Muelle's, often ending strokes with arrowheads (flechas). The flechero scene developed at a time of cultural isolation, its practitioners being largely unaware of graffiti in the New York style. The spread of hip-hop culture in Spain in the late 1980s introduced the new graffiti styles developed in the United States. But, variations in Muelle's work basically kept his original design. Argüello appeared on Spanish television and in newspapers.

Death
Argüello died of liver cancer on 1 July 1995 at the age of 29. His obituary appeared in El País.

Legacy
In 2022, the Spanish graffiti brand Montana Colors released a special edition aerosol can featuring Muelle's tag alongside a short documentary about him.

At the behest of local PSOE politicians a tag of Argüello‘s in La Latina, threatened with obliteration by building renovations, was officially protected by the Government of the Community of Madrid in 2024.