Pixacao

The first thing I noticed during the cab ride into Sao Paulo from the airport yesterday was the graffiti. Not only was it everywhere I looked, adorning the facades of public housing and warehouses and corporate offices, but it was like nothing I had seen before. I'm no scholar of graffiti, but the spindly, angled lettering of consistent height and width, seemed something of another world.

Lucky for me, I spent most of the rest of the day surrounded by urban artists--hip hop and break dancers, Djs, and taggers who had come out to the art space where I'm based for a day of free music and art making--who were all too pleased to tell me about pixacao (pee-sha-sao), Sao Paulo's signature graffiti script. Pixadores are their own breed of taggers and mostly work within a large crew to tag whole building fronts. The taller the building facades, the taller the building, more prestigious the tag. The form of the script was influenced by heavy metal album coversof the 80s (though someone told me its roots extended prior to the the 60s and 70s). 

I found a good video clip explaining pixacao in English on Youtube. You can see some of the fate-tempting acrobatics these pixadores go through to make their mark. It stands in stark contrast to some of the more "traditional" graffiti art I saw on walls and building sides, which is making its way into the mainstream art market. I hope to post some pictures of this as I spot it in the city. 

Good-bye, Harlem

New York doesn't make it easy to leave, especially in early summer. I took one last walk through my neighborhood, up to the circus of 125th St., where the crowds strolled along, pausing to look at the street vendors' wares from incense to commemorative Obama T-shirts, over to Morningside Park, filled with lazy birthday parties and family barbecues under the plush green canopy, and back to Frederick Douglass Blvd. where the high afternoon sunlight glistened off a parade of unhurried gypsy cabs. For me, this is my neighborhood at its finest. I'll miss it.

Expectations

Last night as I was starting to think about packing, I received a call from a German artist friend, O., wishing me a good trip. I told him that despite my excitement for my trip, I'd had no time to really think about where I was going or what I was getting myself into. 

"But this is the best way to travel," my friend, who has spent the past few years traveling traveling the world to make art, insisted. "The fewer expectations you have about a place, the less time it will take you to reconcile them with the realities you find when you arrive at your destination." 

Beyond justifying my lack of preparations, this seemed like sage advise from a seasoned traveler. 

But I'll still have to pack. 

São Paulo bound

In two days time I'll take the train from Manhattan to Newark and board a plane to São Paulo, my home for most of the summer. My intent is to experience the culture of São Paulo, to the best of my ability. To do this, I'll need to learn the language, Portuguese. With the help of a foreign language study grant from the U.S. federal government, I will spend my mornings at the Fast Forward language school. (I'm not sure I like the idea of fast forwarding through any part of my stay in Brazil, even the learning of verb tenses.)

I hope to keep this blog as a repository and reflecting pool for my experiences with culture and  a way to keep in touch with all of you. 

Ate breve (see you soon)!

(The photo is from Tony de Marco and accompanied an article on São Paulo's move to ban all advertising in the cityscape. Read more from Business Week)