Art Crimes Os Gemeos 2

AC: There's a remarkable kind of writing that has developed in São Paulo. What's it called and what are its characteristics?

OG: São Paulo has always had different graffiti styles. Beginning in the 1980s, writers went to the streets to paint with rollers, latex paint pigment, and spray paint. Some people did giant stamps covering the asphalt in the street, for example the group Tupinaoda, who drew labyrinths made with rollers and latex. There was stencil art too, spray can art, and Paulistas' tags, called "pichação," done with rollers and paint and spray.

See for yourself, photos by Stone, 2000

Pichação is a straight-letter style of writing that goes with the urban architecture of São Paulo. It is different than the handstyle in Rio de Janeiro, where they write with curves, bending the lines.

Nope, it's on the outside, and people get shot at and some fall down. Photos by Stone, 2000

In São Paulo the pichação began in parallel with hip hop culture and other graffiti definitions that were beginning. So São Paulo tags were influenced in the beginning by logos and letters from heavy metal record covers. Like a fever, the transformation and innovation of these letters took hold, and today we have our own calligraphy.

We believe that there is simply a need to occupy space in the urban environment. With his name, a boy creates a new style of writing characteristics, using foam rollers and latex to write on buildings. It is more popular in São Paulo to use latex to bomb, to use pichação and throw-ups with latex paint, and to do outlines with both short rollers and spray. São Paulo has all these degrees of artistic manifestation.