( Paulo Ito )
Each week during the football World Cup, ARTE Creative offers you an incursion in the contemporary culture Brazilian. Second pane in the company of the graffiti scene whose Paulo Ito, famous since the viral dissemination of his work which shows a child weeping before a ball in its base. But while the walls of the country are covered with messages anti-Copa, with sizes as Os Gêmeos, Kobra or Derlon have made choice opposed. The evidence that, in the country of miscegenation, nothing is all black or all white.
Difficult to go to side. Since a month ago, a graffiti is broadcast on the networks in viral rotation, without that person raises the question of its artistic quality or of the relevance of its content: a child is crying, knife and fork in the hands, before a ball in its base. The message has the merit of being simple otherwise simplistic, whereas the expenditure being swallowed up in the organization of the World Cup of football, in Brazil, are legitimately criticized. The graffiti is signed Paulo Ito, an artist who made his first arms in 1997 by asking the drawings to the airbrush on kraft paper, before opting for the bombs in the street, under the influence of his compatriots Os Gêmeos and Titi Freak especially. Early May, that is on a wall of a school of Sao Paulo - now one of the world capitals of the street art - that it is reached, in the framework of the Mostra of Graffiti e Artes da Vila Pompeia, inspired by a work of the French Goin. The kid hungry for Paulo Ito became the symbol of the people bled for the benefit of the powerful, by round ball interposed. At least, outside of Brazil.
On the spot, the stakes are much more nuance than a battle of good against evil. If something has been successful since the election of President Lula da Silva in 2002, it is well the assistance provided to the poorest. What is lacking in their base, as in that of the middle class of elsewhere, this are the health and education systems worthy of a great country such as Brazil, shaken since a year ago by the incessant demonstrations. The racer has therefore force the stroke. It is also what explains the impact of his graffiti, as we told Paulo Ito himself: "I desire to provoke a debate. I think that I have synthesized something that people believed or perceived. It is true that the situation in the country has improved. But I believe that, sometimes, the humor may emphasize certain problematic very literally. " His Facebook page is now followed by 13,000 persons and we can discover, on his Flickr account, of other works which may be thinking that they slam more fort.
Behind the shaft Paulo Ito, a forest of graffiti anti-Copa pushes to the approach of the competition, in cities Sao Paulo and Rio but also in the larger cities in the north. The trend is documented on Facebook by the Movimento Decoracão Anti-Copa who presents a selection in bulk, without much worry about crediting the artists. It recognizes for example the paintings of Cranio who stage a vengeful Indian on the walls of Sao Paulo. But, in the image of Brazilian society that the Copa do Mundo torn, graffiti are less united than it seems. Among the most famous, several have made the choice of football and of contracts that we can imagine juicy. Thus, the plane carrying the players of the selecao has been painted by the stars Os Gêmeos. Eduardo Kobra, him, has dressed a cornet of fries McDonald's special Copa. A Recife, Derlon has asked a beautiful graffiti of welcome to American fans, at the invitation of a site of merchandising, before being covered with a scathing " Forums! Forums! Fifa" ( "reached! Reached! Fifa). In Rio, it is a Neymar croque by the duo Early e Wark, who has been trimmed with the hood of the Black Bloc, the anarchist group which in decoud daily with the Military Police. On the walls, in the streets and in the stages, this Copa has not said its last word.
Text by: Eric Delhaye, ARTE Creative
Translation: FDCINC
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