Pixação; I prefer you hate me than ignore me
“How many artists do you know who risk their lives to make art?”
It is perhaps the most agressive yet romantic form of art as protest, but the purveyors don’t consider themselves artists nor do they care for to be considered artists. Yet every time a pixadore (pi-sha-door) goes out to ‘write’ they will risk their lives for what they do, even though they don’t know why they do it.
Explains Joao Wainer,
“Ask a pixadore why he does that - he will not be able to explain [he'll say]; “I dont know why I’m doing [it] - I just know that I have to.”
If that’s not art, I don’t know what is.
In this documentary short by Cool Hunting and Brazilan journalist Joao Wainer, the presence of Pixacao (pronouced pi-sha-sow) - a type of tagging native and unique to Brazil - is explained and referenced from its advent in the early eighties via the lives of people who make it the most prolific feature of cities like Rio and in particular Sao Paulo. However, in a country which celebrates street art on a scale like no other, pixacao is derrided although to do so is a tragic indication of Brazil’s intolorance towards its underclass. As Joao says,
“Society hates pixadores (pixacoa writers) [...] People from the favelas? Nobody cares about them, nobody sees them; they are invisible. They do something like this [because] they want to say something; “I prefer you hate me than ignore me.”"
Heartbreaking stuff.
Thank you to coolhunting and Joao Wainer
Beijos (Sasha)
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