where
it began
what
it is
“piche meaning tar, pixação signifies by extension marks and lines made with this material; pixação is a femine word, the plural being pixações. the expression also exists in contracted form: pixo and pixos, where the letter ‘x’ is also pronounced ‘ch’. The term originates from the name given to mural writings (mainly political messages, responses to the various political slogans) painted in the streets, drawn with black tar on the wals, as far back as the 1950s and 1960s. the expression pixação subsequently lost in the 1980s its original (political) signification, and came to describe the same technique taken over for the promotion of a name, for the visual glorifaction of the individual or the group. the term would currently seem to be limited to the description of these signatures, in that their amplitude makes one forget the initial practices thus described.” (from: chastanet, françois (2007) pixações. são paulo signature, p. 237)
pixações
differ in four fundamental ways from traditional us-style graffiti:
-
form: pixações vary – as all graffitis –substantially. each
pixador tries to develop its individual style. however, the lettering
of pixações has certain distinguable caracteristics derived from
fraktur, runic and etruscan scripts. furthermore, the lettering is
determined by the fact that pixadores write by using the reach of their
whole bodies, not
only of their hands.
-
color: pixações are normally singlecolored, the original color being
black, derived from tar. the color is applied either by roller or by
spray, roller being the original technique for taring.
-
location: pixadores try to place their pixações in the most
impossible and dangerous locations, e.g. at the top of high-story
buildings, bridges and the like.
-
spread: pixações are simply everywhere!
it is not the aim of the present project, to elaborate on pixações from são paulo. for an excellent introduction, “pixações: são paulo signature” by françois chastanet is highly recommended. for visual impressions, a search on flickr or google images will provide lots of pictures. some of my favorite albums are
pixações
in basel
you may imagine my surprise when i recently “discovered” some pixações in the port of st.johann at the rhine river, in my hometown basel, switzerland. there is, as you can see, perfect similarity between the originals in são paulo and its counterparts in basel.
from the moment of my “discovery” on, i started to search for further examples and decided to document this phenomenon on my website. on one of my pixação-hunts, i “caught” by chance one of the pixadores – evis – in action. he confirmed to me that his lettering is inspired by pixações from são paulo, which he knows only from the internet and from the above mentioned book.
beeing
myself a pure amateur, with no further insight into the pixação
movement, neither in são paulo, nor in basel, i shall refrain from
making any uninformed comment. of course, i would be curious to learn
more about it - feel free to contact me if you have any information!
it will be interesting to observe, if pixações will invade basel as
did american graffitis and tags, or if they will lead to the invention
of an new lettering, adapted to the local environment.
for those who are totally unfamiliar with the graffiti situation in basel, it might be interesting to know, that the most frequent type of graffiti are tags, which can be found about everywhere in town. as opposed to the pixadores in são paulo, the taggers here in basel are rarely tagging in difficult locations (foto made on homburgerstrasse).
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