Page 105 - ARTE!Brasileiros #38

URBAN ART SÃO PAULO | PAGES 30 TO 34 of Thiago Noise, in the streets and even on the façades of
buildings and houses. He lived there for only one year. He
OUTSIDE THE MARGIN returned to Grajaú one month ago, where his works are also
very frequent.
To Noise, one of the proposals of the exercise of graffiti is “to
SÃO PAULO GRAFFITI ARTISTS DISCUSS ISSUES OF TERRITORY, THE redesign the space where it is created” and also “to explore
TRANSIT BETWEEN CENTER AND PERIPHERY AND INDICATE POSSIBILITIES the city to be familiar with it,” as well as encouraging the
OF DIALOGUE WITH THE CITY AND PUBLIC AUTHORITIES sharing of experiences. He provides us concepts of territory
which are very familiar for those who study contemporary
art. He thinks, for instance, that moving around territories
TEXT AND PHOTOS GUSTAVO FIORATTI is vital for the creative process of a work. “Graffiti is often
a meeting of friends, a moment for mingling,” he explains.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GRAFFITI and its public has Drawings and murals made in partnership are common. “And
something that makes it unique in the field of arts: created for public often a drawing left unfinished by an artist is completed by
places, urban interventions often surprise us. Those who attend another,” he illustrates. Noise says he has copied his friends’
galleries or museums need to prepare their sight beforehand. Those works, signed them with a name that wasn’t his, photographed
who walk the streets do not. The person may be drunk, stressed or the drawing after being completed and sent it to its assumed
carrying her groceries. creator. Partaking and sharing undermines any possible search
This text that readers have in their hands, however, was written with for authorship – as if all authors were one.
a less incisive proposal in mind about graffiti’s more unmistakable Near the Carrão metro station is an emblematic example of the
vocation. If Fernando Pessoa warned us that to navigate is necessary, graffiti’s social power. On the wall of a house there is a drawing
graffiti now shifts this beautiful verb from the naval lexicon to the with at least three signatures: ABL (a wordplay with the Brazilian
asphalt sea. Why not leave home to visit the city and pay attention Academy of Letters), VIP (Vai i Pinta) and TK (todo canto crew).
to what is said in it? These are not signatures of artists, but of collectives. Nick
The experience that resulted in this text stems from an itinerary Alive, a graffiti artist who is a member of the last two groups,
with five routes in the four regions of the city and in the downtown tells that “crews represent ideas,” both concerning themes and
area. There are marks of graffiti-makers in all corners of São Paulo, aesthetic lines.
in alleys and busy avenues, on buildings’ gables, under bridges, Nick’s work was registered in the project Entre Linhas Urbanas
in railways. It is a large army willing to face law enforcement and (Between Urban Lines), a platform that maps works of graffiti
public authorities. artists across the regions of São Paulo on Instagram and which
A rule seems to be essential to limit the artists’ preferred territories. will result in a book. The project promotes 96 graffiti artists from
Where there are more eyes passing by, there is more graffiti, as if 96 districts and was created by the independent art production
this exchange bore some sort of signal: “people pass here.” The agency Sê-Lo. To check it out, search online. Or walk the streets!
downtown area and the Vila Madalena district became places full
of artworks for its sheer demographic density and its vocation 1 | GRAFFITI IN VILA MATILDE BY AN UNIDENTIFIED AUTHOR; THE SENTENCE “SAPOS
for tourism and leisure. Cambuci and Grajaú, in the south zone, ERRO” (ON THE TOP RIGHT CORNER) MAY INDICATE THAT THE ARTIST WALKS AROUND
are specific cases: distant from the center, they wound up being THE REGION OF AVENIDA SAPOPEMBA (SAPOS); ERRO REFERS TO THE TYPE OF
populated by drawings for more emotional reasons, or simply LETTERING USED
because they are the birthplace and residency of leading characters
of the São Paulo urban art. Important artists came out of these 2 | ABOVE, WORK BY THIAGO NOISE ON THE BALCONY OF A RESIDENCE IN CAMBUCI,
districts: from the former, the duo osgêmeos; from the latter, Mauro WHERE HE LIVED FOR A YEAR, UNTIL THE BEGINNING OF 2017; THE DISTRICT IS ALSO
Neri and Thiago Noise, among others. KNOWN FOR BEING THE “BIRTHPLACE” OF THE DUO OSGÊMEOS. RIGHT, ALSO BY AN
When Mauro Neri writes “what we choose to see in the city,” he UNIDENTIFIED AUTHOR, GRAFFITI IN THE DISTRICT OF CAMBUCI, IN THE SOUTH ZONE
proposes to “look into the political peculiarities of artistic occupation OF SÃO PAULO; WAREHOUSES AND OLD RESIDENCES MAKE UP THE LANDSCAPE
in the landscape,” as he explains in a video that is part of his project
Cartografitti, a geographic documentation. 3 | IMAGE OF THREE WORKS IN THE NORTH ZONE OF SÃO PAULO, IN SANTANA, REVEALS
Neri is also the author of the sentence-word-poem “veracidade”, THAT GRAFFITI ARTISTS USUALLY ACT COLLECTIVELY AND IN SYNCH WITH EACH OTHER’S
which he has been inscribing on walls since 2007 and that contains PRODUCTIONS
a verb, an article and a noun (the wordplay means both “veracity”
and “see the city”). INTERNATIONAL ART AND POLITICS | PAGES 36 TO 39
He has conducted over 300 interventions around the capital,
2010 through 2015, as he explains to ARTE!Brasileiros. The project ACTION AND RESISTANCE
including peripheral areas or city limits, all of them made from
subverts the criteria of choosing places with higher visibility, since
it is not the place that makes the drawing more visible in his work; PROTESTS, POSTERS AND MANIFESTOS SHOW UP ONCE AGAIN IN THE
it is the drawing that draws attention to derelict areas, or regions STREETS OF NEW YORK AFTER TRUMP TOOK OFFICE; RESEARCHER
that are undergoing a deterioration process.
Exercising art in the public space, to him, also triggers varied INDICATES A PHENOMENON OF APPROXIMATION BETWEEN ACTIVISM
political situations, resulting in meetings among artists, passersby AND ART IN BRAZIL AS WELL
and, in a more conflicting situation, artists and the police. The
dialogue, to him, seems as crucial as the interventions he proposes, BY MARIANA TESSITORE
as may be attested in the videos of the Cartografitti project.
The incidence of graffiti in one region can also reveal that that IN 1970, A GROUP of artists took to the streets of New York to
place is part of the path of an artist – or a group of artists. Walking protest against the Vietnam War and the death of six black men in
around the Cambuci district today reveals a strong presence the streets of Augusta, Georgia. Called Art Strike, the movement

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