Walk down the street in Barcelona or Bogota, and you might see icons across a wall, familiar things like a pineapple, a factory, Jesus at the cross. Look more closely and that fruit is actually an explosive, that industrial plant is puffing out a world map of pollution, that stake holding Jesus is the set of crossed machine guns symbolizing Colombia’s powerful anti-church guerilla movement. Whether DJ LU is spraying brick walls or silkscreening paperworks, the iconic urban artist from Bogotá, Colombia has plenty to say. Living through the fallout from Colombia’s deep dive into drug trafficking, its internal warfare, its state repression of popular forces for change, DJ LU saw his country enveloped in savage attacks that left hundreds of thousands dead. From the narcotics trade that spurred 1980s drug wars to 2025’s collusion among corrupt politicians and police, DJ LU wants us to show “things that traditional media hide from us.” Creating murals in major cities, he depicts greed, abject violence, and craven power, breaking down major problems with suggestive motifs that are uncomfortable combinations. Consider the pair of ice cream cones, one dripping down the side. Furtherexamination shows two round bombs, half exposed from the cone, each with a fuse at the top. Using simple visual fusions to initially trick the eye is part of the impact. The doubletakes not only imprint images in our mind, they give us time to consider the painful realities these graphics summon. Find, for example, DJ LU’s martini glass accessorized with a machine gun stirrer, messaging that the closest elites get to armed conflict is by directing it with a cocktail. Look at the ear of corn with a tripwire. Colombia is home to one of the largest number of landmine victims in the world, behind Afghanistan. Armed conflict has made much of the ground impossibly dangerous to farm and despite the past decade of government and FARC coordinated efforts to clear the mines, more are laid by drug cartels protecting their trade routes. DJ LU emblazens those who seize rights to empower themselves. destroy land and separate families with some fused pictures that show their goals: open scissors bladed with machine guns that sever families, the corkscrew wine opener in the form of a Nazi salute. His pictograms may be small, but they loom large in Latin street culture.