graffiti and pichacao

From graffiti to pixao

Urban protest in Brazil*

Paula Gil Larruscahim

Introduction

The people of Brazils biggest metropolis dont have a problem with graffiti. Its

pichao they cant stand. This is how Caleb Neelon (2006: 30), a mainstream

American graffiti writer (and co-author of the History of the American Graffiti)

observes the context of Brazilian urban scenario graffiti. While during the 1990s,

traditional graffiti was institutionalized and commodified in the realm of hip-hop

culture, oppositional styles, called pichao and pixao respectively, were

increasingly associated with vandalism, crime, grime or, as paulistanos (people

from So Paulo) tend to call it, visual pollution. Thus, in Brazil there is no war

against graffiti, but against pichao and pixao, which has been considered a

crime since 1998 and is in 2011 clearly detached from the traditional graffiti style

by a criminal act, which aims to protect the environment.

Pichao (with ch) started in the 1960s and currently refers to general urban

calligraphies, whose content can be poetic and playful, but also explicitly political.

Pixao (with x) is the typical style of So Paulo. Currently, it is spread across

the whole country. It looks quite similar to pichao with ch, with hieroglyphics,

also known as straight tags, painted with black latex ink. The goal of pixao

writers is to spread their tags throughout the city, as much as possible, and par

ticularly on the difficult to reach and highly visible places such as the tops of

buildings. There is no explicit political content. Brazilian graffiti (or mainstream

graffiti) was predominantly influenced by the American graffiti and hip hop

movement. It was decriminalized and even sponsored by the state and is cur

rently seen as a new muralist movement (Besser: 14).1

* The author thanks the editors and anonymous reviewers for the constructive comments and

Willem de Haan and Ren van Swaaningen in particular for editing the article.

1 Finally, there is grapixo, which is a mix of pixao and Brazilian graffiti. It consists of a

straight tag, symbolized by two lines, one black and other colorful. Grapixo will not be analysed

in this article, because it does not play a specific role in the argument I want to make.

Tijdschrift over Cultuur & Criminaliteit 2014 (4) 2 69


1. Political pichao: for a life without turnstiles

2. Pixao or the straight tag: DI

70 Tijdschrift over Cultuur & Criminaliteit 2014 (4) 2


3. (Mainstream) Brazilian mural graffiti at Beco do Batman

4. Grapixo style: Vandalos Kep Crew



In Brazilian graffiti politics, a special feature marks the beginning of the

twenty first century: the use of public campaigns promoting mainstream graffiti

in order to fight the transgressive styles of pichao and pixao. By exploring the

nonlinear history and stories of pichao and pixao, of illegal and mainstream

Brazilian graffiti, I hope to demonstrate to what extent these subcultures are sim

ilar or indeed different, specifically focusing on the tensions produced by its dif

ferent dynamics.

Focusing on these dynamics as a research problem, the main aim of this article is

to demonstrate to what extent the commodification and co-option of mainstream

graffiti, and the simultaneous criminalization of pichao, have contributed to

the emergence of pixao with x as a movement that uses aggression and trans

gression in order to claim the right to the city and the use of the urban space.

Analyzing the contradictory process of on the one hand, criminalization, and on

the other, commercialization of different styles of graffiti and street art is a

means to understand the blurring boundaries between public and private space

and the crescent spatial segregation in urban centers.

In this article, I will 1) present the current state of graffiti, pichao and pixao

in Brazil; 2) point out the relationship between the commodification of graffiti

and the criminalization of pichao and pixao; and 3) discuss the shifting boun

daries between lifestyle, illegality and resistance.2 In the context of this special

issue of Tijdschrift over Cultuur & Criminaliteit on visual representations of crime,

the focus of this article is on how the artistic value attributed to graffiti came

along with a process of commodification in which the critical political meaning is

often, but not always, obscured.

Cultural criminology, graffiti and transgression

Cultural criminology focuses on the phenomenological dimension of crime and

crime control, giving special attention to their meanings and roles in power-

relations. Unlike more traditional perspectives, cultural criminology pays ample

attention to the representation of crime and its cultural construction, in which

issues like emotions, risk taking, consumerism, popular culture and media repre

sentations of crime in the context of late modern society play key roles. This

implies that they are not only issues of social class, as critical criminologists

would frame it, but also experienced and constituted by affective affiliation, lei

sure aesthetics, and collective consumption as by income or employment (Ferrell

et al., 2008: 15). From this perspective, cultural criminologists focus on the

dynamics of commodification and criminalization of transgressions and the poli

tics of meaning and endeavors among commodified and criminalized subcultures,

social movements or groups. Hence, cultural criminologists consider urban space,

cyberspace and multifunctional spaces as the privileged places of social and cul

tural creativity and political transgression.

2 This article is based on data collected from an ongoing ethnographic research project conducted

in So Paulo (Brazil), from September 2013 to July 2014, among pixadores and Brazilian graffiti

artists.



Alison Young (2013: 25) asserts that the city of a public space is more than its

streetscapes, cartography, planning, economy and neighborhoods; it is an image,

a symbol, a mood, an atmosphere and a sensibility. In this sense, illegal and

transgressive graffiti could be seen as a force opposing the power of architects,

urban planners, real estate brokers and the advertising media, who traditionally

shape the urban landscape.

The interplay between the authorized and non-authorized creation of urban land

scapes also underlines a circular process of domination, criminalization, resist

ance and oppression, which Mike Presdee saw as both a political and a cultural

process: the political process of the powerful has the ability to make criminals of

us one day and heroes the next, while the cultural process implies that those

with power come to define and shape dominant forms of social life and give them

specific meanings (Presdee, 2000: 16). This dance between power, crime policies

and culture produces a social tension which could be recognized in, for example,

the manifestions of the Spanish Indignados, the Occupy movement, the Taksim

Square Protests in Turkey, the Brazilian Movimento Passe Livre (free fare move

ment), the Arab Spring and most recently the Euromaiden in Ukraine.

Although we cannot say that the subculture of illegal graffiti and pixao are

informed by a clear political agenda, their means and ways to resist the authority

of state laws can be situated in the frame of an anarchist criminology, which

Jeff Ferrell (1998: 9) described as a means of investigating the variety of ways in

which criminal or criminalized behaviors may incorporate repressed dimensions

of human dignity and self-determination, and lived resistance to the authority of

state law.

Thus, pixao and illegal graffiti writing could be perceived in two ways: it has a

macro-dimension, which refers to the illegitimacy of the political process by

which graffiti writing is framed as criminal behavior, and a micro-dimension

which relates to the opposition of urban control (Ferrell, 1995). Illegal writers

perceive urban space as a free domain - although not in the sense that there are

no rules or ethical codes. On the contrary, living outside of the states law does

not mean living without any law. In this case, subcultural elements such as style,

technique and brotherhood establish genuine, alternative sets of values and

norms, which structure the interaction among crews of pixadores and guide the

interaction between them and the city authorities and townsfolk. Jonathan Ilan

(2013: 18) suggests that this naughty ability to use shared values is a form of

street social capital, i.e. the resources available to individuals through social net

works which allow them to thrive within the street field.

Philippe Bourgois (2010) draws attention to a following stage of this street cul

ture, which is the commercialization of oppositional street styles by the media,

the music and film industries and mainstream society. Regarding the process of

commodification and brandfication of graffiti by the corporate advertisement

sector, Heitor Alvelos (2004: 184) has announced the death of urban graffiti as a

result of an omnipresent mainstream culture, which is no longer appropriating

signs from fringe culture, but is actively generating a physical manifestation of

its own fringes (Alvelos, 2004: 185).



Cultural criminologists like Jeff Ferrell (2008) and Jonathan Ilan (2012) have

demonstrated how close the relationship between crime, transgression, market

ing and consumption is. In the words of Mike Presdee (2000: 26): consumption

and communication come together to form the engine room of criminalization.

By exploring a genealogy of illegal and mainstream graffiti in Brazil, not only as a

successive chain of events, but also as a dual process of commodification and

criminalization with opposite and contradictory aims, I will demonstrate how

these tensions have contributed to the emergence of new forms of urban graffiti.

Conceptualization and special features of pixao and graffiti in Brazil

In order to explain and conceptualize the different Brazilian writing styles and

their criminological meanings, I will now present the elementary notions of urban

writing in Brazil. The above mentioned four different types of urban writing in

Brazil - pichao, pixao, graffiti (and the grapixo style we dont go into) differ

in style, purpose, class and legal status.

At the beginning there was pichao with ch

Pichao with ch has its roots in the resistance movements against the Brazilian

dictatorship of the late 1960s. Anonymous messages, inspired by the counter-cul

tural movements, such as proibido proibir (it is prohibited to prohibit) or

abaixo a ditadura (down with the dictatorship) were used as a way to protest

against the military dictatorship which lasted for almost thirty years. The term

pichao refers to a previous technique of painting with a pitch, which came just

before the spray can. The use of spray cans has led to very distinctive nuanced

tones, which were not possible with a pitch technique, that was restricted to

wide black patches, due to the usage of large paint brushes (Knauss, 2001: 340).

During the 1970s, the label pichao served to homogenize the diversity and vari

ety of writing styles that ranged from political tags against the dictatorship to

random and humorous graffiti: the consequence of this homogenized, confusing

process of Brazilian graffiti, that was inspired by American graffiti, did not

become an autonomous urban expression until the late 1970s and the beginning

of the 1980s (Knauss, 2001: 342). A neutralization process of the graffiti subcul

ture in Brazil had started in the early 1980s, in So Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, with

public campaigns for a clean city. This was the moment that pichao started to

be associated with grime and crime: the grime of the city caused by graffiti was

lumped together with the issue of aggression against both private and public

property, thus associating graffiti writers with vandalism. In this sense, graffiti

valuation started to be judged in terms of monetary losses and the money spent

on the recovery of those damages, thereby delegitimizing their social critical

approach (Knauss, 2001: 343).

This blurry process of the criminalization of pichao on the one hand, and the

subsequent institutionalization and commodification of Brazilian graffiti on the

other, started in the late 1980s and 1990s, reaching its peak at the beginning of

the twenty-first century. While graffiti writers started to move from the streets



into the art galleries, public campaigns for a clean city were simultaneously

launched. According to Paulo Knauss (2001: 340), this was grounded in the image

of the impurity and dirtiness of pichao. In So Paulo, the Program Clean City

was clearly launched with the aim of regulating the parameters for advertisement

in the public space, but especially of removing visual pollution.

While analyzing the connection between graffiti and waste, Alison Young (2014:

53) draws attention to the pejorative imagery produced by common sense

assumptions and the authorities alike: the comparison of the writer with a uri

nating animal is repeatedly made. Those archetypes of waste and dirtiness are

essential to legitimate public campaigns of removal and even criminalization,

thus the graffiti is seen as something out of place, which must be erased in order

to return the social space in its proper condition (Young, 2013: 54).

This ambivalent distinction between nice, artistic graffiti and pichao was an

important stage in the process of the institutionalization and commodification of

graffiti. The media played an important role in the demarcation process of the

boundaries between mainstream graffiti and pichao through three stages of

cultural domination rejection, domestication and recuperation those were all

discernible in the medias portrayal of graffiti, which transferred its focus from

the street to the variety page and television screen (Schlecht, 1995: 38).

In fact, the media and the state already declared a war on graffiti in the late 1970s

and 1980s, when newspapers labeled graffiti writers (grafiteiros) as vandals and

bandits. The later development was not so clear: from the early 1990s on, this

binary model actually helped to obscure the portrayal of graffiti as a problem

through a process of cooptation, commercialization and criminalization. As

Neil Schlecht (1995: 37) observes: except for its most radical, marginal elements

Brazilian subculture graffiti was ultimately incorporated and institutionalized by

the controlling culture and its political and social institutions.

Quite similar to what happened with American graffiti, in which the commodifi

cation process started through advertising media (Alvelos, 2004: 181), the co-

optation of an artistic expression that was essentially transgressive in Brazil was

also promoted by the state and the media who clearly divided writers between

pichadores and grafiteiros. At the same time, this process has also generated a

counter-effect, namely a new form of artistic and political expression, leading to

the emergence of pixao with x.

In Brazil, this creation of a radical difference between graffiti, pichao and pixa

o came from two directions. The first one comes from the legislator who, with

the 9605/98 Act, stated that graffiti is legal if it is allowed by the owner of the

tagged property, and illegal when the tags, writings or drawings are not allowed.

In that latter case it is called pichao which is considered as a crime against the

environment. The second direction from which a new, radical distinction was

made between graffiti, pichao and pixao, was from the subculture itself: it

distinguished pichadores, pixadores and grafiteiros respectively on the basis of spe

cific characteristics of their aims, style and technique.

According to Teresa Caldeira (2012: 386), pixao, along with other urban practi

ces in So Paulo, requires a new conceptualization of democratic public space and

of the role of ordinary citizens in shaping the city. Despite a lack of consensus



both among scholars and graffiti-writers themselves about the nature of the

pixao movement, its urban inscriptions (pixaes) are now part of the imagetic

repertoire of most urban centers across Brazil. It is a style of graffiti demonstrat

ing an art which is essentially transgressive. It openly defies the authorities,

scales walls, sometimes draws attention to the anesthetized glances of the city,

delimits territory and opposes traditional ideas of fine art, by dirtying, drawing,

writing, scratching, tagging, marking and defacing the urban space.

Brazilian mainstream graffiti

In Brazil, the term graffiti is currently used for the mainstream and colorful

style, which has its roots in the American graffiti movement of the 1970s. In his

comparison of Brazilian contemporary graffiti with the American graffiti move

ment, Paulo Knauss (2001: 335) identifies an irreverence and oppositional atti

tude as a main characteristic of graffiti in the late 1960s, with the mural painting

as a tool of social protest within the movement for civil rights. Knauss (2001:

334) uses the example of a mural painted by twenty-one African-American artists

entitled The Wall of Respect that was, on the opposite side of the same street,

answered a few months later with a mural called The Wall of Truth by the Black

Power movement, who started writing graffiti in 1967 in another street in Chi

cago. According to Knauss (2001: 334), other murals such as The Wall of Dignity

in Detroit have become icons of the American social movement. These commun

ity murals were painted in the same neighborhoods from which the graffiti move

ment emerged, but unlike these original graffiti, the new murals were supported

by federal government sponsorship, which has dispensed millions of dollars

through the National Endowment for the Humanities (Austin, 2002: 6, 276).

Austin goes further by stating that the final irony may be that writing is alive and

well today, while the authorized mural movement has long since faded in all but

a few cities as federal monies supporting it have progressively been cut off (Aus

tin, 2002: 6).

It was in 1970s New York that the portable spray can made graffiti part of a

larger, dispersed, and ongoing struggle for public space among marginalized

groups in the United States (Austin, 2002: 4). Here, the war on graffiti started

with the claim that graffiti was a harmful act, both for its visible pollution of

public and private space and for its political dimension. Hitherto, style, form, and

methodology, major concerns of most writers, were secondary in significance to

the prime directive in graffiti: getting up (Castleman, 1982: 19). The notion of

getting up is derived from the act of jumping on a train to set a tag; a classical

graffiti style in 1970s New York.

Despite the fact that Brazilian and American graffiti styles are very different, the

process of neutralization and commodification occurred in a similar way: the

state, with the help of the media, reshaped a marginal cultural manifestation by

promoting its acceptability as aesthetic and commodity (Schlecht, 1995: 38). The

media were the primary vehicle in the process of labeling and redefining graffiti,

first as deviant, later as an enigmatic and exotic, yet harmless expression, and

finally as an acceptable commercial expression of the dominant culture (Schlecht,

1995: 38).



Many Brazilian graffiti writers became famous with exhibitions around the world,

as for example the Paulistana Old School, formed by Binho, Tinho, Speto, Vitch

and Os Gmeos. This old school was influenced by the hip-hop movement, which

was introduced in Brazil during the 1980s (Medeiros, 2013). As its style is usually

colorful and has attractive patterns, it is more tolerated by society and better

accepted by public opinion than pixao.

Following a global tendency, we can argue that Brazilian mainstream graffiti is

becoming part of a movement known as the rebirth of Muralism in contempo

rary urban art. According to Jens Besser (2010: 14), the issue of legality or illegal

ity is of secondary importance, since the new muralism wants not so much to

realize a clear, dictated goal of cultural education; it is rather an expression of

human culture and a tradition which goes all the way back to those who decorated

their environment with cave paintings as early was the Stone Age.

As a way to fight pixao, Brazilian graffiti has also got state support through the

creation of legal writing places and public and media campaigns, such as the Graf

fiti Cup in Rio de Janeiro and current projects including Pichao is crime,

denounce (Curitiba), Hot-call Pichao (Porto Alegre), Respect for Belo Hori

zonte and Clean City (So Paulo). One of the strategies municipalities, schools

and property owners used to prevent pixaes is to hire and pay graffiti writers to

paint murals across the city.

5. Promoting citizenship, valuate and preserve the public property



This does not mean that Brazilian mainstream graffiti cannot have a political and

defiant content; it is completely free from any censorship. A vivid example is a

graffiti painted by Os Gmeos in a flyover in So Paulo in 2013. It contained the

message that the city council should stop spending its money cleaning graffiti,

because Brazilian cities have much more serious issues to deal with. After

two days, however, the council hall of So Paulo erased it.

The dynamics of co-optation, commodification and neutralization of the trans

gressive and political element of graffiti in Brazil coincides with the gentrification

of urban centers in, for example, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, So Paulo and

Curitiba. At the same time that the Brazilian authorities fight against pichao

and some other illegal graffiti, neighborhoods such Vila Madalena in So Paulo,

an area that has been invaded by the real estate market, uses graffiti as a touristic

selling point. Beco do Batman is an alley in Vila Madalena that is filled with graf

fiti pieced together by famous urban artists and thus, a hotspot for those who

seek to breath the cool air of transgression in a relatively safe urban environment:

6. Billboard setting directions to Beco do Batman, Vila Madalena, So Paulo

7. Tourists sightseeing around Beco do Batman, Vila Madalena, So Paulo



Pixao with x

Next to the commodification and neutralization process of Brazilian graffiti, we

can observe a parallel process, which is the criminalization and demonization of

pixao. The word pixao came from pixo, which means pitch or tar; the dark vis

cous mixture obtained by the distillation of wood, coal, peat, etc.

According to Jeff Ferrell (1996: 166), an understanding of behavior labeled as

deviant or criminal must evolve from a close examination of its actual practice.

Ferrell argues that beyond some sort of voyeuristic pleasure, details such as the

brand of graffiti spray or the way graffiti writers negotiate the design of an illegal

piece matter because they constitute the experimental setting of deviance and

criminality, the immediate, interactional dynamic through which criminals con

struct crime (Ferrell, 1996: 166). In the Brazilian case, these elements are essen

tial in understanding the emergence of new subcultures such as pixao. Pixao

has different characteristics, techniques, aesthetics, as well as political and social

approaches than other graffiti styles, and pixao writers also have different

motives.

8. Opus 666 e Shapas, straight tag (pixo reto), So Paulo city centre

In So Paulo, the resistance against an increased control over urban space is

directly connected to the issue of spatial segregation and the privatization of the

public domain (Caldeira: 380). However, pixao is not framed in the classical way

as a form of resistance to power and control, for it implies a micro-politics of

everyday life and an existential rupture through the joy and the experience of



being in the city (Mittmann, 2013: 63). Therefore, it is seen as something out of

place, which must be erased in order to return the social space to its proper condi

tion (Young, 2013: 53).

By looking at the meaning people give to their everyday life in relation to leisure-

activities, Ruth Penfold-Mounce (2009: 4) argues that the joy of transgressing

boundaries through crime and deviance necessitates consideration of why and

how pleasure occurs through illicit activities. In this sense, pixao appears to be

a ludic form of resistance: though it is aggressive and defiant, its practice pro

vides a deep sense of pleasure and amusement.

Pixao with an x started in So Paulo during the 1980s when pixadores from

different suburbs and peripheries of the city started to arrange their meetings in

specific areas, so-called points, and organize themselves in groups or crews (tur

mas e gangues) to promote their logos (grifes) and signatures throughout the city.

Since the end of the 1990s, there are about four different points of pixao. The

idea of a point is to congregate pixadores from the different peripheries of the

city, and indeed the whole country, in order to exchange folhinhas (sketchbooks

and fanzines of pixao), share experiences and circulate from one part of the city

(and the country) to another, setting their pixo, logo and crew-signature through

out the city. At present, the main point in So Paulo is located at the city centre.

In the 1990s, there was much competition, violence and disputes amongst pixa

dores, but since the beginning of the twenty-first century pixao has become a

more peaceful movement. The internal disputes seem to be over and they are,

politically, a more structured as a group. This new phase of pixao can be

explained by recent interventions from within the pixao movement, called ata

ques (attacks) and atropelos (trampling). As opposed to the performances of the

pixaes during ludic tours around the city in the 1990s, the attacks always have

a prior organization and a political reason.

The first attack took place in 2008 in the Faculty of Fine Arts in the University of

So Paulo. The aim of this attack was to promote a discussion about contempo

rary art. The action was organized by a group of pixadores and consisted of an

occupation of the faculty building. They tagged the building as much as they

could, but targeted especially the area reserved for the presentation of the final

theses. As a result of the attack, a student was arrested and lost his right to grad

uate.

The latest political attack occurred in October 2013 and was performed by an

anonymous pixador against a historical monument at Ibirapuera Park in So

Paulo. The aim of this attack was to promote a discussion about the archetypes of

Brazils historical heroes. The target of the attack was the Bandeiras monument.

This is a sculpture commissioned by So Paulo government in 1921 to Victor Bre

cheret, in order to symbolize the sixteenth century expeditions of the Portuguese

army: Os Bandeirantes. In his description of the monument, which consists of a

long canoe being pulled by two men on horses and pushed by a group of African

slaves and indigenous people, the sociologist Srgio Franco (2014: 120) draws

attention to the fact that Brecheret removed any trace of the dramatic content

that death brings. The Portuguese lead the group, the indigenous people are por

trayed as slaves and, to their disgrace, they are chained. The monument, in fact,



represents how oppressive and devastating the history of invasion and the coloni

zation of Brazil was. According to Franco (2014: 121), the sculptors work did not

represent any revolution. The attack to Brecherets monument was both a means

to draw attention to a voting process about a new law on indigenous land, and an

attempt to reframe Brazilian historical symbols and what could be considered a

piece of art.

9. The Bandeiras Monument pixado: No to PEC 215 and Bandeirantes assassins!

10. The Bandeiras Monument pixado: No to PEC 215 and Bandeirantes assassins!

Atropelo is a similar practice to what Jeff Ferrell (1996: 87) writes about graffiti

writers in Denver, who had been writing over other tags, pieces or indeed over

another pixao or graffiti. The slang used in this respect is going over. It is a

serious infraction, because one of the ethical standards within the graffiti subcul

ture is to never go over someone elses work. A famous atropelo took place in



2010 when graffiti artists Os Gmeos, Nunca, Nina Pandolfo had their mural

trampled. The motivation was to draw attention to the high costs of their mural,

commissioned by the municipality, whilst very basic needs in the peripheries,

such as housing, sanitation and health are not provided by the authorities.

Pixao, criminalization, art and resistance

Order (and therefore disorder) is a cultural phenomenon that art challenges

and, by doing so, itself becomes criminalized. Order is the destruction of art

and art the destruction of order. (Mike Presdee)

The relation between art and transgression, especially with respect to contempo

rary art, is underpinned by a constant tension between denial and adaptation.

Whilst a transgressive artistic act rejects conventional patterns, it reaffirms a

given social and cultural order at the same time.

After the first attack at the Biennial of Fine Art in So Paulo in 2008, pixadores

were officially invited to participate in the following exhibition in 2010. This

could be seen as the first step toward the cooptation of pixao, but then we

would have to disregard the irreverent character of their participation. Apart

from the exhibition of folhinhas (sketchbooks and fanzines of pixao), an unex

pected intervention took place: an attack on the installation White Flag of the

artist Nuno Ramos. Azevedo (2011) described it as a sinister work, consisting of

three giant conical mounds made of black sand and marble, it featured loudspeak

ers that emit a dim hum of samba music and three live vultures in a mesh cage.

The birds would stand still for long stretches, resembling their taxidermy cousins,

then startle spectators by taking flight.

The attack of the installation was orchestrated by Djan Ivson, an artist and pixa

dor, who trespassed the net separating the birds from the public and tagged: Free

the Vultures. The symbolic act did not only serve to start a discussion on the poli

tics of art, but also to remind people of and protest against the imprisonment of a

group of pixadores in the city of Belo Horizonte, in the province of Minas Gerais,

who were accused of gang crime. The phrase was a metaphor, comparing the vul

tures of the installation to pixadores and pointing at the contradiction that some

pixadores were being recognized as artists at the biennial, whereas others were

arrested for gang crime and conspiracy.

Regarding the dynamics and parameters of what is considered art, Taylor (2013:

32) reminds us that the process involved, in art, is not one of a sifting by experts,

but one of innumerable social arrangements interacting with each other. Thus,

pixao goes beyond a criminalized subculture and operates as a disruptive and

unsetting mechanism against this social and cultural order. As suggested by

Presdee, if order is a cultural phenomenon that is challenged by art, apart from

any institutional recognition, pixao is possibly a new and inventive form of

transgression.



Conclusion

Since 2011, graffiti is no longer considered a crime in Brazil if it is authorized by

the owner of a building, be it for advertisement or purely for adornment. Instead,

public campaigns attempt to turn graffiti into something joyful and peaceful,

which is adapted to the aesthetic standards of public policies that aim at the

transformation of urban centers into clean, homogenous areas with a minimal

circulation of ordinary people. This is done through the suppression and neutrali

zation of the transgressive elements of graffiti and street art, such as challenge,

irreverence, protest and subversion.

The way the style defined as pichao is treated stands in sharp contrast with this

process of commodification and neutralization. Pichao has got a fundamentally

pejorative meaning and has been marginalized and criminalized. This dual and

apparently contradictory process of commodification and criminalization has

contributed to the emergence of new forms of urban graffiti. On the one hand,

there is the non-recognition of state laws, which is particularly apparent among

pixadores, for whom a politics of vandalism is an essential element of their

(life)style; they will never accept the institutionalization or sponsorship of pixa

o. On the other hand, we can observe a blurring of the boundaries, not only

between graffiti and pixao, but also between illegality and transgression.

Despite the fact that Brazilian graffiti has been commodified and recognized as

art, its content still contains critical political messages.

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graffiti and pichacao

Documents

mainstreambrazilian

traditional graffiti

political pichao

mix of pixao

stories of pichao

transgressive styles

cultuur criminaliteit

grapixo style