Pixação: As real as it gets
A friend brought my attention to this video:
The clip features Joao Wainer, a Brazilian filmmaker who talks about the basics of Pixação, a specific type of street art developed in Brazil. Pixação features sharp angles and bold letters which draw on heavy metal typography of the 1980s, according to Wainer. The name comes from “piche”, the local word for pitch (tar) which was frequently stolen from local construction sites to use as tagging paint. Although the art form is supposedly unique to Brazil, it is hated by the locals.
The legal history of Brazil’s street art is actually quite interesting. In 2002 the so-called Clean City Law gave 800 “city inspectors” the authority to buff anything that looked irregular, including billboards, advertisements, graffiti, and pixação. During the clean up effort, public backlash led the city to partially legalize hip-hop style graffiti, but not pixação. Angry pixação writers took to the streets and actually tagged a graffiti art gallery.
The closest thing to pixação that I’ve seen in Austin are the large letters on the side of the building below:
That was pretty intresting. I am kind of new at looking at street art, so I learned a ton, thanks for posting.
Yeah it was interesting to see this video, but i think tagging is not graffiti art.
Call me a prude, but I hate the idea of ‘tagging.’ I can’t believe someone tagged over that graffeti museum. Is there not some kind of code amoung taggers and graffeti artists that prevent this from happinning?
Oh yeah! A large number of streets in big cities here in Brazil are dirty with this kind of “art”. The most higher you make your “art”, more respect you obtain from the group.
[...] the complete other end of the graffiti spectrum, check out this excellent short video discussion (less than 4 minutes, SFW) of “Pixação,” a specific style of graff writing practiced [...]
I have not seen much street art in my town. Small town actually. Whenever I travel to Chicago or Detroit, I always see it though. I never knew much about, and glad I just learned some new things.
I am from Brazil too and the situation is really like you told. Cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are completely tagged like that and people in general became very frustrated seeing that while they are going and coming from work.
Interesting film. I don’t think the art is so much in the tagging itself but in the placement of the tags, in the fact that somone has scaled a tower block to place their mark somewhere that is quite inaccessible.
From a purely formal perspective, I don’t think that you could find a more interesting phenomena as Pixacao. As one site that I recently read (also, recently forgot) put it…”it [pixacao] represents a break from the NY style of graffiti…” Making the point that pretty much everywhere else in the world–yes, the world–you can trace their graff back to the late 70’s–early 80’s wild style, etc. In Brazil, you have something completely original.
Second, perhaps as a salve to those who can’t stand the tagging but love the bigger pieces: just give it time. A lot of those tags you hate will eventually grow into the murals you love. Consider it an investment in the future.
Wow.. tagging the art gallery takes some balls. Never mess with graffiti artists!
-Kai Lo