Are Graffiti Artists or Pixadores Bound to the Can?
By João Correia
Are graffiti artists or pixadores—São Paulo’s rebellious taggers—tied to the spray can? Or is it more a lifestyle, a concept, a critical lens on the world?
Could cloning the figure of a pixadora and embedding her in the collective street imagination—as an observer who captures passersby’s attention and awakens their critique of the system—itself count as a pixadora’s work? Or are pixadores and graffiti artists forever chained to the can for expression?
In the 1950s, at the peak of abstract expressionism in the United States, critic Harold Rosenberg argued that painting’s essence lay in the artist’s physical act. He emphasized process, gesture, and action over the finished piece. This focus on the creative act and its interplay with life beyond art sparked a gradual shift.
By the next decade, it freed artists from the brush, birthing happenings, conceptual art, and more—expanding the boundaries of artistic expression.
What about street art? Though pixo and graffiti share urban space, they’re distinct movements, each with unique shades, as thinkers like Norman Mailer, Jean Baudrillard, and Gustavo Lassala have explored. Consider pixo specifically: its intense physicality, performative charge, and singular critical gaze—rooted in a code of conduct, social critique, networked action, and a community spirit crossing regional lines. Couldn’t pixo, like graffiti, evolve beyond its tools, much as art history once did, leveraging its defining traits to break free of the can?
This question fuels “The Observer,” a work by Eneri in collaboration with Marcelo Pasqua. Here, a pixadora’s figure is cloned and perched on a wall, smoking and clutching a can as she watches the city - mirroring the tense dance between street art, urban life, and its audience.
Pixação SP – The Silent Cry of the Excluded
Alexandre Barbosa, Anthropologist, USP
The Marks of the City: The Dynamics of Pixação in São Paulobr
Pixação, São Paulo’s raw, rebellious script, emerges from the margins to challenge the urban canvas—a movement now echoing beyond Brazil into global conversations on art and resistance.
The Style of Pixação in São Paulo
Pixação in São Paulo, often called “pixo” by its creators, is an aesthetic born from the city’s peripheral youth. It’s the stylized tagging of public spaces with names of groups or individual aliases, written with an “x” and defined by sharp, angular strokes. Unlike political or poetic graffiti, pixação—rooted in the late 1980s punk scene—draws from vinyl covers of bands like Metallica, KISS, and Ratos de Porão. São Paulo’s landscape of buildings and walls shaped its straight-edged style, a dialogue between rebellion and urban form.
The Grifes: Alliances of Pixador Groups
A grife—a label boosting a pixo’s worth—is an alliance of pixador groups, marked by a symbol alongside the main tag. Uniting various crews under different aliases, a grife builds a citywide network, though members may not all know each other. Their core duty? Spread the grife’s symbol far and wide. Joining often requires notoriety—proof of a strong presence in the pixação scene. This mutual prestige elevates both pixadores and their grife. Other obligations include honoring fallen members and feuding with rival grifes, fueling intense conflicts.
The “Points”: The Social Hub of Pixação
The “points” reveal how pixadores claim São Paulo. The central hub—shifting due to police pressure from Largo da Memória to near Vergueiro metro, and since 2005, around Galeria do Rock facing Largo do Paissandu—draws peripheral youth downtown. Its location is strategic: a crossroads for visibility and access. Tagging the center earns “ibope” (buzz), as it’s seen by pixadores citywide. Status comes from hitting the most, highest, and riskiest spots. The point doubles as a hub for announcing peripheral pixação parties and trading goods like videos or pixo sticker albums. Most crucially, it’s where alliances form—pixadores from distant areas team up to tag each other’s turf, gaining safety and reach. Solo missions happen too, but a “true pixador” ventures far beyond their own block, shaping a unique urban mobility.
Trading Folhinhas
At the points, pixadores build a web of reciprocity via folhinhas—small, folded papers traded as an icebreaker. A newbie might ask, “What do you throw up?” or “Which quebrada are you from?” (Quebrada: a peripheral neighborhood, rich in risk and camaraderie), then request a signature. Peers trade back. Collected in folders, these signed sheets signal status—the more, the better, with veteran tags most prized. Beyond paper, notebooks or planners also hold these marks, preserving the city’s fleeting tags as a youth archive. From this, deeper ties grow.
Pixação vs. Graffiti
Pixação and graffiti share a tense bond in São Paulo. Elsewhere, pixação might be a graffiti style, but here it’s often its foil—graffiti is art, pixação is “dirt.” Yet, like the raw tags of NYC’s Bronx in the 1970s, pixação claims space illegally, transgressively. Graffiti’s acceptance—painting storefronts to curb pixação—highlights their divide, but their roots align more than they clash.
Transgression Through Risk
Risk drives pixação, feeding adrenaline and prestige. The boldest feats—scaling heights or dodging guards—win respect. Transgression, not just delinquency, defines them, a marginal stance woven into daily life. Police violence, like spray-painting their bodies when caught, stokes this defiance. Group names embracing “vandal” or “delinquent” turn stigma into pride.
Periphery in the Center
Weekly, downtown São Paulo hosts peripheral youth blending pixação’s codes with street culture. “Which quebrada are you from?” sparks ties, linking distant hoods through a shared identity of risk and solidarity. This universal yet local bond resists territorial feuds, celebrating peripheral strength.
Humility and Respect in Pixo
Humility binds pixadores amid competition. “Arrive with humility,” they say—respect, not arrogance. It sustains alliances, while a strategic version softens encounters with police or transit officials. True humility, though, shines among equals.
The Space Where Pixação Emerges
São Paulo’s walls, rising since the 1980s from fear of crime, segregate and exclude, amplifying class divides. Into this fractured city, pixação stakes its claim, defying boundaries where marginalization thrives.
Visual Note: Pair this with shots of pixação on São Paulo’s skyline or close-ups of folhinhas, captioned for context—e.g., “Tags clim