| São Paulo is a continuously sprawling home to approximately 20 million people, and the setting to a vibrant and active graffiti scene. Spawned from political protest, one of its many branches echoes Latin muralism and turns eyes towards a new niche in Brazilian artistic production.Much like the face of a theatre actor, the surface of a city is adaptable. Continuously lathered in make-up that reflects its zeitgeist, the impermanent statements and claims to (urban) no man’s lands and psychological spaces show its psyche. |  |
Urban Art Claims and Migrations – Camila Belchoir
São Paulo is a continuously sprawling home to approximately 20 million people, and the setting to a vibrant and active graffiti scene. Spawned from political protest, one of its many branches echoes Latin muralism and turns eyes towards a new niche in Brazilian artistic production.
Much like the face of a theatre actor, the surface of a city is adaptable. Continuously lathered in make-up that reflects its zeitgeist, the impermanent statements and claims to (urban) no man’s lands and psychological spaces show its psyche. Public wall spaces in São Paulo have continuously been communication channels and territorial claim spots since the 70s when protestors manifested their views against the dictatorship, written with tar. Springing from the same source, two main streams in Brazilian graffiti are active to this day: grafite and pichação.
Tar in Portuguese is “piche” and pichação (or pixação, as commonly used on the streets) the name given to the writings and markings that dress so many building façades and walls in São Paulo today. Different to grafite, which is image-based and uses colour, pichação is its simpler and rougher cousin. Monochrome angular writings cover as much bare space as possible; the higher up on a building the better the claim. Tar is replaced by diluted latex and the nature of communication reflects a new age; the particular calligraphy seems encrypted to the untrained eye. Illegal, pichação is traditionally ill seen by mainstream society even though its markings have become commonplace and referential of the city’s urban landscape.
Grafite normally takes place lower down the cityscape and perhaps due to its use of images, more tolerable, although as illegal as pichação. Brazilian grafite varies greatly from its US counterparts in style and subject matter. In its inception, it was tightly bound to the hip-hop movement, as in the US, however local reality triggered forms of manifestation and imagery deeply rooted in its location leading towards a production that to local conoscenti, is closer to (Hispanic) muralism than American graffiti. Brazilians had little visual influence from abroad during the manifestations of its formative years due to dictatorship restrictions and advocates fed off unique local references, imagery and creativity. The results turned out the richer for it. Grapixo also prominent on São Paulo streets, is a hybrid variation of pixação and grafite, based on sinuous and colourful lettering.
Born and bred in the neighbourhood of Cambuci, in São Paulo, Osgemeos’ work is the most prominent, of Brazilian grafite-influenced work, in the international contemporary art and graffiti circuits. Snapped up by Deitch Projects not long ago, their imagery draws on its formal grafite origins and at times grapixo and pixação; local social reality; Brazilian folklore, art and crafts; personal, family references and poetics; all of which amalgamate into an intriguing array of vibrant and unique images, objects and installations. Identical twins, Otávio and Gustavo Pandolfo, go by the name of Osgemeos (the twins) and have dabbled in art since their childhood. Active in the SP graffiti scene from an early age, the beginning of their immersion into the international circuits is marked by meeting Barry McGee in early 90s São Paulo, a publication in 12 Oz Prophet magazine and an invitation abroad by German graffiti artist Loomit. Osgemeos exhibited avidly outside Brazil before hitting any high recognition mark locally in the art scene; their first solo show in SP comes in end of July 2006.
An afternoon spent with the well-spirited twins in their home and studio, eating lychee sweets while they scribble on anything they set hands on, surrounded by recently yellow painted sound boxes, carved limbs and wooden dolls, used peacock feathers and endless bits and pieces for their next show, led to watching a video of a performance in Germany which, personally, was a breakthrough into their world.
A large square room with the iconic Osgemeos yellow face painted on the outside and broken glass on its hairline (as used in São Paulo atop walls to scare off trespassers); inside, signs of a living room. Osgemeos clarify they wanted to allow the audience into their minds, their world, because “that is art—entering one’s intimacy, art gives away who you are,” they say. The whole environment was smashed in a few minutes by its authors sporting ski masks on opening night; crushing the notion of idolatry for works simply because they are placed in conventional spaces.
Osgemeos have toured worldwide, painting murals, making installations, sculptures, paintings and wall objects but they maintain their street grafite as much as possible. “The public can enter our world for free on the streets,” they remind one—a world that manages to be at once fantastic, grounded and pure, with a handful of their recurring and unmistakable essence. Regarding their signature yellow, Osgemeos say it remits their generation: “Things from that time seem yellow.” Admirers of Brazilian artist Bispo do Rosário, who was admitted into a psychological institution from where he worked, they say on style: “To have [a personal] style is sometimes not to have [conventional] style at all.” They also declare that there is an essence of ex-votos to their work. Ex-votos are home-carved wooden body parts, made as church offerings on the advent of a healed ailment, typical to Brazil and of popular devotional nature.
Admiration for their work opened niches for both individuals who came with and after them (see Speto, Herbert Baglione, Titi Freak, Nina for a few) and the advent of Brazilian street and urban art manifestations at large, whatever their guise; melting the boundaries for their presentation.
Choque Cultural, deals mainly with artists whose work is rooted in street and urban art. An exchange exhibition (in March/April) with established Galeria Fortes Vilaça, allowed a selection of their artists (Nunca, Zezão, Fefê Talavra and Titi Freak to name a few) to exhibit at FV, and FV artists (Adriana Varejão, Beatriz Milhazes, Luiz Zerbini and Ernesto Neto, again for a few) to exhibit at CC. The exchange injected new energy into the local art circuit. Its repercussions are felt and hint towards a new focus niche in Brazilian production. Since, Nunca has exhibited in a group show at another gallery in town (Casa Triângulo), others are finding their niches in the world, art aficionados are widening the circumference of their references and options and the tendency is that the vibe should continue to expand and develop. Choque Cultural shows in July, drawings by tattoo artist Tinico Rosa who during the time of the show schedules tattoo appointments with the public, of his own designs—another perspective on acquiring art.
Fortes Vilaça now represents Osgemeos in Brazil and houses their first solo show on home ground, July through August. A large mural on the gallery’s façade, objects, paintings and sound installation are the keys into their imaginary. The central installation of the exhibit, a typical fishing boat, covered in colourful scales, drawings and bric à brac houses a fibre-glass mechanized, Osgemeos doll, and remits their belief that life, like a river, is uncertain, and one never knows what the next bend
