Great stuff Tristan!

titifreaks pieces look great. i wish he had done some work on the street when he was in NY for his show. i hope he will in the future.

Yeah, they rock. If you haven't already, make sure to check out Titifreak's site for loads of other great street pieces.. www.tfreak.com/streets.php

More from recent travels...

Zezao



Titifreak & others

Crazy Sh*t! Looks like they jusy mobbed that place and took over. Crazy!

I think it's awesome. I grew up in NYC during the 1990's and at that time the graffiti scene for FOR REAL. No F'ing around. Dangerous times for writers. This act reminds me of the good ol' days.

Fuck me that is old skool action. Tristan tell us whats going on when you pick up this thread

Hang on though what the fuck is this about ...

This could be some idealistic, do good-ing, middle class art wankers fucking up a working man's opportunity to earn some money and better himself.

Then again it might be some toys having a tantrum ?


??

It is exactly as reported on Wooster collective. 30 pixadores attacked Choque Cultural last Saturday. I am not the owner of the gallery - just a European partner but we were all very upset about this. I didn't post about this before because I didn't want to give these idiots the satisfaction of acknowledging what they did.

The gallery was being staffed by two girls at the time who were powerless to stop them destroying the gallery. Thank god they didn't attack the girls. The pixadores then posted what they did on flickr, which was dumb because they have since been arrested by the police. Its really big news in Sao Paulo.

The most stupid is what have they proved? - they set out to say Urban Art should not be exploited but the artists Choque Gallery represent have chosen to have shows - nobody has forced them. Some of the artists like Zezao and Boleta are also pixadores themselves!

The show on was not even Urban Art - the work was by Gerald Laing and John Simpson - two UK artists showing from Ocontempory gallery. Luckily all the work was not damaged as it was behind glass. But they destroyed a Speto and a Titifreak canvas.

I can't imagine an "Urban Art" show in the UK being destroyed by taggers. But it does go to show that young kids do have a voice, even if all they chose to do with that voice is to destroy art. Perhaps there is a jealousy because nobody supports what they pixadores do even when they do cover the city. I don't personally celebrate this kind of destruction, choque is such a friendly and homely place - why would you want to smash it up? The owners of Choque have not exploited a scene - all they have done is nurture artists who all hang out there and all of the profits gone back to making the gallery better and promoting the work - hardly an evil thing to do.

that seriously sucks for gerald laing and john simpson. they should be thanking there lucky stars that their work was all behind glass. feel really sorry for titifreak and speto. they certainly dont deserve that.
and the poor girls who worked there!!!
sounds like these pixadores guys are a big contradiction...sepecially if that particular gallery exhibited for zezao and boleta....there own crew?!
i have a zezao print and its one of my favs.
this would have done more damage to their rep rather than improved their image for sure.
idiots!
if its on the street then fair enough but to then try and sabotage your show and in essence prevent you from getting paid (your bread and butter) its disrespect in the highest order.
i'm glad they got banged up.

The battle for Leake street continues... hopefully good new stuff will start to replace the damage in the there too.

thanks for the email's of support to Choque Cultural - they have only ever tried to do something positive. It might look excitingly hardcore to trash a gallery but if someone did this to your own home it might not be quite so thrilling...

So the backlash has started...and not before time either.

Why they would have done it? Hmm...well, maybe they got fed up with their culture being appropriated by self appointed 'experts' who then suddenly become the arbiters of taste within the scene and promote only what they can personally profit from, thus further excluding an already marginalised social group.

To see this act of graffiti being denounced by somebody who has made a career out of compiling books full of pictures of graffiti art illegally painted on other people's property really is the ultimate in hypocrisy. And as for the suggestion that the girls working there were somehow at risk of being attacked...is there any evidence that graffiti writers regularly physically attack women? or is this just a cheap appeal to emotion in an attempt to turn public opinion against those people that the person making this insinuation already has a vested interest in discrediting?

Ironic though that the gallery was named 'Culture Shock'. Because it must have been quite shocking for them to suddenly be visited by the real counter-culture, as opposed to the insipid consumer-culture pastiche they market to their clients. This incident should serve as a timely warning for all of those people who like to flirt with illegal activity or anti-establishment and 'revolutionary' themes because they think it's 'cool' or profitable....one day it might just come back to bite you in the ass, and then you're going to have to choose which side you're REALLY on.

All of the current street/urban art hype is yet another empty advertising ploy for the opportunists to cash in. So to all of those cynical 'artists' with their cliché photoshop stencils or boring pasteups produced just to publicise the next show or print release, patronising bogus experts desperate to extend their positions of power and influence, and the parasitic galleries hawking their faux street art, all of whom who have for too long been riding off of the back of this thing to satisfy their own voracious greed....I'm afraid the game is well and truly up and you're no longer fooling anybody. Authentic street culture is something that's not for sale.

Marc and Sara at Wooster Collective make their statement...

"What we do (or do not) post on the Wooster website can sometimes be a very difficult decision.

Yesterday was one of those difficult decisions.

If you know us, then you know that the Wooster Collective is much, much more than just a website. In some ways, it's a shorthand way for us to communicate with our friends. What's most important to us is meeting and interacting with an incredible group of people from around the globe who share a common view of the world. The site is our way of communicating with them. It isn't perfect, because it doesn't need to be perfect.

We, like so many others around the world, love the Brazilian street art scene. We love the street artists there, and we love the team that runs the Choque Gallery. We consider them part of our family.

When we first saw the photos of the Choque Gallery we were shocked and incredibly saddened. Our hearts sank. And we knew others - our friends - would be saddened and shocked too. We put the photos up on the website yesterday for only one reason - to share the news of what happened in Sao Paulo with our friends who may not have known that this incredibly violent act had taken place. We knew that they would be shocked and saddened as well. We knew that they would come to the support of the gallery and the artists. It was one of those instances where the pictures spoke for themselves. We were speechless and we knew others would be too.

We now realize that by not speaking out yesterday we may have given the wrong impression to those who do not know us.

To be clear - In no way do we want to appear to be promoting or condoning what happened in Sao Paulo. By not commenting on the photos yesterday we now realize that some people may be thinking that we took this act lightly. We didn't. The Choque Gallery is a true labor of love and we want to see it thrive and provide new platforms for Brazilian artists. We believe strongly that these artists have every right to find success in and outside the galleries.

The work that was hung on those gallery walls was done with incredible heart and love. We know that because we've met the artists and we know the passion that they have.

We support the Choque Cultural Gallery and the artists who's work is shown there and we hope you will as well."

If those Pixadores think its all about them and what they do on the streets then let them get on with it on the streets. For them to say it was a protest about "marketing, institutionalization and domestication of Street Art" is a bit of a joke OK they can think what that they want, but why damage other artists work in a gallery?