PixAção !
The junction of the words ‘pixo’ + ação (action in portuguese) means more to some people than just the act of writing your name in ‘pixo’ letters somewhere !
For some guys, like the 30 pixadores that took over the gallery Choque Cultural in Sao Paulo on Sept. 6th, it means the pure act of free speech ally to vandalism (which is the main foundation of the so called ‘art’ of pixação), what led them to a non violent act of maniphest against the vulgarization, institutiotinalization and ‘domestication’ of the street culture. So they organized an ‘attack’ to one of the icons that suposebly represent all that.
Translation of the ‘invitation’ made by the ‘pixadores’ :
“Atack Part 2 (( On the way to Revolution )) We’ll invade a ‘shitty’ art gallery ((Choque Cultural )). According to its ideology, it takes cover of underground artists so the place is ‘ours’. We declare total protest. (-place of meeting-) Rescue the phrases. Heil to the ‘pixação’! Art as crime. Crime as art. All for the pixação movement. “
I asked one of the ‘pixadores’ who participated on the action, what went on there and he told me that:
” In my view the graffiti has a function, a social cause…and none of the artists (that I know about) does it with that purpose. A graffiti with no critics and without any ideology, besides the artists of that gallery were never really from the streets ! The gallery had only been presenting something parnassian and ‘elitized’…beautiful to the eyes of everyone…something that don´t suit our reality, at least mine. When I´m walking I see ‘favelas’ and misery, exploration and opression by politics and religion !And who, in an underdeveloped country, has condition to buy any of those paintings ?! It was the ‘favela’ protesting against the social exclusion ! ”
” If you don´t come to the favela, the favela comes to you! ”
I got these photos from the photographer CHOQUE PHOTOS himself, who was envolved in the action and support the cause of it, he had his previous flickr account deactivated by the administration, which is shame because, besides these photos, there was some awesome photos of ‘pixação’, but they´ll be published in a near future on his book about the act and culture of pixo.
On the gallery´s blog they published a post about it saying that “the gallery was invaded and depradated, several artworks were damaged. The authors published images of the action and brag of the agression in websites over the internet. There was a convocation to violence, to propagation of hate and to coward intolarance. This organized self-promotion is an explicit form of truculent authoritarism disguised as protest.”
And on the same post there´s a text from the couple that runs the website Wooster Collective, about the subject. Check it here.
As for the gallery, it´s a place where you can find some good art, as I posted an exhibition there with Tim Biskup, Shepard Fairey, Jeff Soto; and also oppened up the space and the eyes of other galleries, in other parts of the world, for brazilian artists who has a graffiti history.
The fact is that only one painting from Speto was damaged, all the other paintings that were ‘pixadas’ had a glass over it so it should be fine, and they´ve already painted over it.
It´s complicated for me to take parts on this particular case, me being a person who goes to exhibitions, like art galleries that opens their space and ‘eyes’ for talented artists from the streets, who support the social causes that the street culture stands for, but I believe in EVOLUTION as the way to REVOLUTION, and not the other way around !
” The philosophy of a century is the good common sense of the next ! “
October 6th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Hi, from Choque Cultural gallery.
We are a group of three guys that opened the gallery 5 years ago. We started to work as a publisher, making limited editions of prints. Check out: http://www.choquecultural.co.uk and http://www.choqueculturalgallery.com Here in São Paulo we have a big urban art scene, that mix street art, graffiti (and his more radical form pixacao), tattoo art, comics, illustration etc. We started the gallery like a space to show artists that came from these new urban art forms. Our goal is to promote the dialog between these artists and the others, coming from the mainstream and the art schools. Since the beginning we put together old masters, famous painters, emergent talents and people from the streets, sure. For our first public exhibition, called Calaveras (skulls),we invited 15 artists came from the streets and 15 came from tattoo studios to show an art work inspired by skulls. In 2006 we put together a dozen famous Brazilians contemporary artists and a dozen street artists, in a swap with the most important traditional Brazilian gallery. In 2007 we start to show abroad, in a partnership with Americans and Europeans galleries. We took more than 15 Brazilians guys to show in NYC, Paris, London and other cities. We started to bring foreign guys to show in Brazil. We brought people like Shag, Shepard Fairey, Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, Camille Rose Garcia among many others. In August we showed Gerald Laing, 72 years old Englishman, a living master of 60′s Pop Art. He knew us when we were in UK showing 10 Brazilian artists. He loved the gallery’s proposal and accepted to show here. The guys that vandalized our gallery destroyed some Laing’s works among other artists. We are an experimental space and we work with true love for art and artists. We have an original space that is totally different of the “white cubes”. Our gallery is a small house, three floors, small rooms and almost every artist can paint the walls to change the environment around their hung pieces. Almost every show is like an installation, where the artist puts their art works. We are proud of we are doing. There is nothing like this here in Brazil. It is so hard to work in a third world country! We have no government help, because we don’t like it. In Brazil we need to pay the biggest taxes in the world to do an small art business like ours. Everything that we do is because we sell the art that we exhibit and have some profit. A fair profit. We were attacked by a group of guys that have a unfair ideal. They are using violent attacks as weapons of protest! This is unacceptable, because this will brings more violence, for sure.
The question involved at the attacks is not so hard to understand… is about a weird nostalgia of the underground times… We don’t care about nostalgia, we are thinking of the future. We are thinking about a time when more people can show and more people can collect art.
We were hardly hit by this attack, it was violent and not fun. We had financial and moral losses , our artists too. Everyone with a brain here in Brazil got really sad with this action.
October 6th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Interesting, thank-you.
October 6th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Thank you Miss G. I’m glad you got round to posting this article, this has been plaguing my mind since i first heard about it.
It’s such a extreme reaction in the defence of cultural identity, it seems to typify the aversion that art communities everywhere have against commercialization by outside parties which they feel haven’t contributed to their culture. Happens everywhere, but never resulting in something like this.
Hey, i’m not saying that Choque Cultural is an noncontributing outsider to the Brazilian street/contemporary art community, at least not from my perspective and the best of my knowledge, but the sentiment of the “pixadores” would suggest that they feel otherwise. And I really want to know why and to suss out why they resorted to this action.
Baixo, man, that’s a tough situation, and i’m sorry for what happened to you, especially in light of of the fact that you think it’ll continue with more violence. Its tough enough getting a project off the ground, then to have a group of people come in off the street and smash the place with the promise of them coming back to smash it up some more at a later date, is heart breaking.
The galleries philosophy of using the space to promote the local artists internationally by associating them with established artists is admirable, a worthy goal and in theory do would great things for the community, the question is, why are these kids so pissed off?
Is it’s because, as the articles quote would suggest, they’re protecting a notion of cultural Independence that they feel is being threatened by the galleries development?
Or is there something else that we’re missing here?
More importantly are the “Pixadores” actual artists or just staunch bombers? Because if the latter applies then there’s no point discussing it.
October 11th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Well, Koan…from what I´ve seen, for THEM…there´s no point discussing it.
As for Baixo Ribeiro. I was actually meant to write more about the gallery and what it stands for, but as I said, I posted about it before, it was a nice post, a nice show, lot of people liked it, heard about it from here, and I had nothing to complain about your space and what you do with it. So thanks for he reply on the post, my real intention with it was to open space for both sides to spoke their minds, I´m glad you did.
My only reason to write about it was about the ‘fact that 30 pixadores boke into a gallery to protest’ , and as a lover of the arts that comes from the streets, as part of the urban enviroment we live in, I could not see this as anything different than an intervation of the street with arts…STREET ART, right ?! Isn´t that what people call it these days…so !
I do feel as Koan, about the gallery situation and you as an owner.
But I don´t think people got hurt, I don´t know about any physical violence, so as a person who I think do see pixo as part of the ‘marginalism’ that is part of this city, where your gallery is. So, I just hope you could see it from an outsider point of view, so you won´t feel as bad as I can only imagine that you might be. It´s your job, your gallery, your ‘life’ and effort put into it…surely it´s sad, but hopefully something greater comes out of it. FOR BOTH SIDES.
I can´t see this as just ‘an act of violence’…I heard from them, I comprehed it, and they never asked if they “should or should not do it”, they did it. My envolvement with it was to stay true to the facts, with the information I had, from the people envolved in it, and put it out here.
So, here they are, the facts from, the ideals and the reason from both sides, for those who wants to take parts. And an answer to one action for one cause in one place that leaves one question, for those who wants to understand it, “WHY?” .
The cause and the effect, differents points of view.
April 7th, 2009 at 3:47 am
来自第三世界的边缘 – Pixação(pixacao) ！…
Pixadores in action !
名词解释:
1.Pixação(Pixacao). 是巴西土生土长的书写风格，起源于圣保罗。根据Graffiti Brazil一书，此种风格的字体是由重金属乐队的Logo和加州某黑帮字体发展而来。
2.Pixador. 来….
May 2nd, 2009 at 1:28 am
[...] More news from the frontlines of the battle between São Paulo’s ‘Street Art’ scene and its pixação community, courtesy of NiceProduce.com. [...]