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Alexander Araya López
Graffiti and the Media: Between Politics,
Art and Vandalism
Abstract: In this chapter, the diversity of contemporary graffiti practices is stud-
ied by exploring the main media narratives that shape the public debate on ‘graf-
fiti’. Firstly, a typology of graffiti practices is proposed based on the motivation
and circumstances of their production. Both the communicative and non-com-
municative aspects of these practices are examined, while addressing the role of
spatial politics, power and the public sphere in the sociological analysis of these
cultural products. Secondly, five media discourses apropos of graffiti practices
are discussed, namely the medical-epidemiological, legal, criminogenic, social
value and artistic value narratives. Unauthorized forms of graffiti – which include
political graffiti, tagging and pichação/pixação – are perceived as damaging to
the social body, as compared to more ‘aesthetic’ forms of graffiti, such as street
art and hip-hop graffiti.
1 Introduction
Graffiti is a complex and diverse series of social practices that have continuously
captured media attention. In 1971, The New York Times published a short story
about Taki 183, ‘a Manhattan teenager who writes his name and his street number
everywhere he goes’.1 In the article, the reader learns about this ‘subculture’ of
young people, who enjoy being recognized by their peers. Two important details
in this story relate to our understanding of contemporary graffiti practices: first,
the unidentified journalist describes the negative impact of ‘tagging’ in New York
City, explaining that ‘to remove such words, plus the obscenities and other graf-
fiti in subway stations, it cost 80,000 manhours, or about $300,000, in the last
year, the Transit Authority estimates’. In the following pages, strategies to elimi-
nate and regulate graffiti practices will be discussed, including references to em-
blematic cases of police abuse. The second important detail is a verbatim quota-
tion of Demetrius (a.k.a. Taki 183) in which he allegedly trivializes the costs of
graffiti removal while pointing to the unfairness of public aesthetics and spatial
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1 ‘“Taki 183” Spawns Pen Pals’ 1971.
Open Access. © 2023 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111326306-005
| Alexander Araya López
politics: ‘Why do they go after the little guy? Why not the campaign organizations
that put stickers all over the subways at election time?’2
In this chapter, graffiti practices will be explored by tracking the main media
narratives about graffiti works and their producers in contemporary urban sce-
narios. The chapter is divided into four sections. The first section explores the
notion of the public sphere, power and spatial politics in relation to graffiti, in-
cluding a typology of these practices. Although graffiti practices share some sim-
ilarities wherever the phenomenon is found, there are important differences that
must be considered in terms of cultural understanding, societal value, legisla-
tion, policing and media coverage. After a short description of the methods, this
theoretical analysis of graffiti practices will focus on a typology of media narra-
tives in the second section, highlighting how these discourses shape both the
practices and their producers. The third section of this empirically based study
addresses the anti-graffiti strategies employed by both local authorities and pri-
vate individuals or businesses. The discussion in both the second and third sec-
tion centres around various graffiti practices in Brazil. The final section presents
the main conclusions and identifies several paths for future research on graffiti
practices, its media narratives and its policing.
Understanding graffiti practices:
Spatial politics, power and the public space
There is a vast debate regarding spatial politics and the ways in which ‘we’ – the
inhabitants of a given space – are expected to behave or not behave. In the past,
spatial arrangements of the ‘public space’ were significantly less regulated, and
as Sennett has pointed out, there has been a complex historical process by which
the publicness of our acts has been defined.3 While some behaviours have been
deemed acceptable in public, other behaviours and cultural practices have been
displaced to the private realm, and each society has also defined the method and
degree of punishment for any transgressive behaviour. The concept of ‘we’ in this
context is often a neutralized, all-encompassing idea of a given collectivity, and
tends to hide or segregate those who do not necessarily fit the archetype of mem-
bership. In this sense, while some individuals move through urban spaces and
the cities with relative freedom, enjoying ‘full membership’ because of their
||
2 ‘“Taki 183” Spawns Pen Pals’ 1971.
3 Sennett 1977; Sennett 1990.
Graffiti and the Media |
social status or ‘privilege’, other individuals are excluded from these ‘same’
spaces, navigating them while experiencing stigma and feelings of not belong-
ing. As Goffman has explained in his seminal book on stigma, these disenfran-
chised individuals frequently devise strategies to minimize their stigma.4
Lefebvre and Harvey have observed that the production of contemporary ur-
ban spaces cannot be disconnected from the reproduction of society under capi-
talism.5 Urban spaces are designed to supply the needs of the system, a spatial
rationality that favours the transport of commodities, raw resources, people, in-
formation and other materials that facilitate capital accumulation.6 These spaces
are symbolically violent, and according to Lefebvre, in their monumentality they
‘mask the will to power and the arbitrariness of power beneath signs and surfaces
which claim to express collective will and collective thought’.7 For this analysis,
the notion of monumentality has been expanded to look beyond ‘monuments’,
which are often the target of political graffiti,8 to include other infrastructure that
could be considered ‘monumental’, such as skyscrapers, transport systems (i.e.,
rail transport, airports etc.), headquarters of businesses and corporations and
governmental buildings. Although these spaces have dominant or preferred uses,
alternative uses are not necessarily precluded, and countless forms of spatial ap-
propriation may emerge. In her sociological analysis of space, Löw explains how
several ‘spaces’ can coexist within the same physical space, while pointing out
that ‘we’ experience the city differently depending on multiple factors, such as
age, sex/gender, social class and race/ethnicity.9
The idea of the ‘right to the city’ has been extensively discussed as part of the
resistance against spatial exclusion. According to Lefebvre, this right implies ac-
cess to the centre, a privileged space of power.10 In his interpretation of this right,
Harvey states that this notion not only includes the right to access the common
resources available in the city (in which respect public aesthetics should be con-
sidered a shared good), but also the right to participate in the (democratic) pro-
cesses of shaping the city itself.11 The practices of occupying spaces, resistance and
‘wars of words’ that challenge dominant narratives may be considered part of a
||
4 Goffman 1963.
5 Lefebvre 1991; Harvey 2001.
6 Harvey 2001, 81.
7 Lefebvre 1991, 143.
8 Siwi 2016.
9 Löw 2001; Löw 2010.
10 Lefebvre 1996.
11 Harvey 2012.
| Alexander Araya López
functioning democratic system,12 because they aim at correcting deficits within
democratic institutions and improving the political participation of marginal-
ized/disenfranchised subsets of the population.
Proposing a ‘criminological verstehen’13 of these unauthorized and transgres-
sive social practices, Ferrell et al. observe that this analysis should not be de-
tached from idealized notions of decency and community.14 Indeed, considering
the dichotomy of ‘crime as culture’ and ‘culture as crime’, Ferrell proposes to un-
derstand criminal behaviour as subcultural behaviour, ‘collectively organized
around networks of symbol, ritual, and shared meaning’, while also observing
‘the reconstruction of cultural enterprise as criminal endeavor’.15 As mentioned
above, the practice of inscribing on a wall is not necessarily illegal or controver-
sial when it is practised in the private realm, but the same behaviour is consid-
ered a ‘crime’ or ‘vandalism’ when it takes place in unauthorized public spaces.
Following Habermas and Ferrell, the discussion of public matters – including
both the idea of the city and public spaces and the definition of ‘crime’ – is per-
ceived as key in democratic societies.16 It is through such public debate that con-
sent is reached or attempted, which would theoretically offer disenfranchised
groups the possibility of expressing their political views on a given subject. How-
ever, the political power of these counterpublics,17 diasporic publics,18 or subal-
tern publics19 is limited, and the emergence of participatory deficits within dem-
ocratic institutions has also been acknowledged.20 As Parkinson has pointed out,
there are reasons ‘to be concerned about the ongoing availability of spaces for the
performance of democratic roles, including limits to the ability of some sections
of the public to access collective arenas and resources’.21
Because these diverse collectives experience various levels of disenfranchise-
ment and vulnerability, their relationship with power structures changes accord-
ing to context. Indeed, while the ‘normalized’ idea of political contestation might
||
12 Routledge 2017.
13 ‘Criminological verstehen’ is an adaptation on Weber’s formulation of verstehen, which in-
cludes processes of ‘interpretive understanding’ and ‘sympathetic participation’ that would al-
low the researcher to develop a ‘methodology of attentiveness’ (Ferrell 1999, 400).
14 Ferrell, Hayward and Young, 2008.
15 Ferrell 1999, 403–404.
16 Habermas 1990; Ferrell 1999.
17 Warner 2002.
18 Avritzer and Costa 2004.
19 Fraser 1990.
20 Markovits 2005.
21 Parkinson 2012, 88.
Graffiti and the Media |
take the form of the written/oral word in terms of signature collection, lobbying
and petitions, these subaltern publics might prefer ‘alternative’ forms of politi-
cal participation, including both embodied politics (for example, performance
or dance)22 as well as audio-visual strategies (ranging from holograms to politi-
cal graffiti).
The multifaceted nature of graffiti phenomena can be summarized in an in-
troductory typology based on the intended motivation of the producers and the
circumstances of their production. This typology includes several practices that
are usually labelled as ‘graffiti’ in media stories or specialized literature, but there
is extensive debate about the specific boundaries of each category. For example,
the emergence of zones of tolerance and the recognition of spaces traditionally
appropriated by graffiti producers have contributed to ‘legalizing’ some of these
works, even if other ‘graffiti’ producers – or even scholars in the field – might not
consider these ‘authentic’ graffiti. In this sense, although there are some contra-
dictions in the definition of what graffiti is, the typology allows us to theoretically
differentiate some of these productions, even if a certain piece or written state-
ment fits in more than one ‘type’:
a) political graffiti, in the sense of any legal or illegal street propaganda or political cam-
paigning, which includes both hegemonic and ‘countercultural’ or counter-hegemonic dis-
courses;
b) sponsored or branded graffiti as a ‘new’ form of outdoor advertising in order to promote
certain goods or services associated with local or global businesses and corporations;
c) commissioned or ‘official’ graffiti to designate works realized under the supervision or
with the explicit approval of institutions (local governments, NGOs and churches) as a way
to promote social values, health campaigns, environmental awareness etc. This category
includes forms of muralism that are (mis)labelled as graffiti;
d) street art (and hip-hop graffiti), in the sense of any authorized (negotiated) or illegal
transformation of the public aesthetics (counter-aesthetics could be also included) in order
to improve or challenge the appearance of a given urban or rural landscape. Street art is
freely created by individuals or groups, without the support of any local institution or busi-
ness. This category refers to graffiti practices that are not co-opted;
e) territorial graffiti to refer to the use of inscriptions, signs and other varieties of symbols
created to delimit the geographical-symbolic presence of an individual or collective, which
includes the ‘individual’ practice of tagging (pixação) and any territorial demarcation of
space by urban or rural gangs, independent of any links of these groups to organized crime,
drug dealing or any other potential risky behaviour (as in the case of soccer/football gan gs).
It is important to emphasize that these ‘types’ of graffiti are often hard to sepa-
rate, and that the combination of two or more such types is common. Indeed, in
||
22 Avritzer and Costa 2004.
| Alexander Araya López
recent studies on graffiti, the evolution and intertwinement of these practices can
be observed. Franco has tracked the emergence of graffiti art in Brazil, linking its
origins to political graffiti during the dictatorship.23 Similarly, Austin has ex-
plored the wide complexity of graffiti practices in New York City.24 Furtado and
Zanella have further pointed out that during the sixties, Brazilian graffiti became
a way to oppose the official spaces of public debate and artistic expression, con-
stituting a sort of countercultural movement aimed at creating new civil liber-
ties.25 Some specialized publications on graffiti have also observed the mixture of
these graffiti practices; for example, street art in Oaxaca has been used as part of
the political activism of local schoolteachers campaigning for better working con-
ditions (constituting a mixture of political graffiti and street art).26
Methods
This theoretical analysis is based on my previous systematic revision of news ar-
ticles, op-eds and editorials that discuss graffiti practices in two Latin American
newspapers, namely Folha de São Paulo in Brazil and La Nación in Costa Rica, in
the period between 2001 and 2010.27 A total of 682 articles from the Brazilian
newspaper were collected and coded, while 246 articles were considered for the
Costa Rican case. These media texts were collected with a series of keywords that
included terms such as ‘graffiti’, ‘street art’ and pichação/pixação.28 For the
||
23 Franco 2009.
24 Austin 2001.
25 Furtado and Zanella 2009, 1283.
26 Nevaer and Sendyk 2009.
27 Araya López 2015. Folha de São Paulo (www.folha.uol.com.br) is part of the Grupo Folha me-
dia group, established in 1921. It was the most widely read Brazilian newspaper between 2002
and 2009 (but the second most in 2010). La Nación (www.nacion.com), founded in 1946, is the
main newspaper of the media corporation Grupo Nación S.A., which also includes the newspa-
pers El Financiero and La Teja. Both La Nación and Folha de São Paulo contribute to shaping the
political debate in their respective countries, and could be labelled as conservative and business-
oriented, although their journalistic work allows for some pluralism.
28 In the Brazilian data, searching for the word grafite also yielded results related to the Grafite
column by cartoonist Paulo Caruso; the soccer player Edinaldo Batista Libânio (a.k.a. Grafite);
the term grafite as a form of the chemical element carbon; grafite as a color in fashion, cars and
computer design; and finally, grafite as an artistic technique and pencil material, as in the con-
text of requirements for school or university tests. All these results were excluded from the sam-
ple. Pichado and pichada were also excluded. For the Costa Rican data, the word graffiti was the
main search term, with grafitero and grafitera included as well. Given the common misspelling
Graffiti and the Media |
present chapter, more recent news articles from Brazil as well as media stories
from other countries have been included with the explicit purpose of updating
the main findings of the previous study.
In the Brazilian case, the term pichação, a noun derived from the verb pichar,
refers to messages written on public and private surfaces that do not satisfy the
aesthetic criteria for artwork, generally being political or economic protests or
even forms of interpersonal communication. Pixação, or pixo, in a distinction
made by its own producers, describes a practice of Brazilian youth – some of them
marginal or belonging to the periphery, though not exclusively – that may be char-
acterized as an autochthonous form of writing (calligraphy) typically found in
large metropolises such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro or Belo Horizonte. The
pixação is usually inscribed in black ink (in Portuguese, tinta), and is further char-
acterized by its non-communicative nature and aggressive counter-aesthetic. Both
pichação and pixação have been included in the analysis because they are fre-
quently discussed in the media stories alongside other graffiti practices.
The qualitative analysis is based in three main tasks, as proposed by
Tonkiss:29 a) identifying key themes and arguments; b) looking for variations in
the text; and c) paying attention to silences. The present study has not considered
quantitative content analysis methodology for three main reasons: first, the def-
initions of coding categories used in quantitative analysis are often underpinned
by qualitative judgements. Second, the counting of words reproduces dominant
themes and narratives, reinforcing the power of these categories. Third, quanti-
tative/content analysis presupposes a shared world of meaning that lies in the
content of the articles. One example in relation to graffiti production may be the
alleged criminogenic nature of the practice: even when this type of discourse ap-
pears a few times in the media articles analysed, it is impossible to know the im-
pact of such statements, especially when pronounced by an important source,
such as a local authority or ‘academic’ expert. For this specific chapter, other em-
pirical information has been selected from social media and specialized graffiti
publications, as well as from documentaries and movies produced with the par-
ticipation of graffiti writers, artists and pixadores (practitioners of pixação).
||
of the word, an additional search was done for grafitti. The term pintada was not included in this
research, though it is sometimes used colloquially to refer to this social practice.
29 Tonkiss 2004.
| Alexander Araya López
Typology of media narratives: Graffiti practices
and their producers
A large quantity of graffiti is produced in the streets and on public surfaces with-
out capturing the attention of global or local media outlets. Given this, before de-
scribing the five media discourses related to graffiti practices, it is worth revisit-
ing some essential criteria for determining newsworthiness. According to
Martini,30 these criteria include: (a) novelty, such as new and up-to-date infor-
mation, with the event as a turning point; (b) originality, impressibility and un-
published character, as criteria that could reinforce the idea of novelty and foster
curiosity about the event; (c) the future evolution of the event, considering the
development of the event itself and the possibilities for relating it with other news
events; (d) importance and severity, the impact the event could have on society
as a whole, the possible transformations both in the present and in the future,
and the element of shock; (e) geographical proximity of the event to a given soci-
ety (a local event is more likely to be selected as newsworthy); (f) magnitude, as
in the number of people or places involved and the quantity of individuals,
groups or spaces affected by the event; (g) hierarchy of the involved figures, their
popularity and public sympathy towards them; and finally, (h) the inclusion of
displacements, as in the case of massive migrations, public rallies and demon-
strations, travels of any important public figure and similar changes of location
or spaces.
Based on this, graffiti practices are often reported in the media because they
effectively satisfy several newsworthiness criteria. In the case of established
‘street art’ or ‘graffiti’ artists such as Banksy or the Brazilian twin brothers OSGE-
MEOS (Otavio Pandolfo and Gustavo Pandolfo), their works are immediately rel-
evant for media outlets, as they are recognized artists both in the streets and
within high-status art institutions (Fig. 1). An example of this is the collaboration
of said artists in New York City in 2013.31 Similarly, the 2008 ‘attack’ on the São
Paulo Biennial organized by several pixadores – which led to the arrest and im-
prisonment of pixadora Caroline Pivetta da Mota – became a news story due to its
unprecedented nature, while offering ‘shocking’ images and a potential evolu-
tion of the original event.32
||
30 Martini 2000.
31 Zeveloff 2013.
32 Araya López 2020.
Graffiti and the Media |
Fig. 1: An artwork by OSGEMEOS (Brazil) and Blu (Italy) in Lisbon, which is a more communica-
tive form of graffiti, with bright colours and enjoyable aesthetics; photograph © Alexander
Araya López, 2013.
In both the Folha de São Paulo and La Nación, there was a perceived evolution of
media narratives on ‘graffiti’. In the first years under analysis (approximately
2001 to 2004), graffiti practices were mostly described as criminal activity or van-
dalism. However, these narratives subtly changed to incorporate more palatable
forms of street art and hip-hop graffiti: these practices are portrayed in a positive
light throughout the period under review, which may be a direct result of the cel-
ebrated position that some elite graffiti producers have achieved both among the
‘public’ and in art institutions in Brazil and abroad. Their works are appreciated
due to their aesthetic and economic value. Some arguments against graffiti (and
street art) refer to its attributed US-American origin and to the lower-class or ghet-
toized aspect of the practice. However, graffiti seems to have conquered the upper
class, at least through consumption and appreciation, if not directly through pro-
duction. The legal and commissioned types of the practice have been openly rec-
ognized and fostered by local authorities. Pichação/pixação is presented mostly
in negative terms at the beginning of the period under research (approximately
2001 to 2006), but is perceived more positively at the end (2007 to 2010). This may
be a direct result of the actions of pixadores themselves, who have fought for
recognition both in the media and in art institutions. Since 2008, pixadores have
| Alexander Araya López
not only protested their exclusion through (violent) acts of appropriation of
spaces (which may be considered as forced inclusion), but have also produced
their own documentary movies, books and scholarship.
The following five types of discourses were identified through the qualitative
analysis mentioned above:33
. The medical-epidemiological discourse
In this first narrative, graffiti is perceived as a contagious social practice that is
damaging to the social body. This contagiousness seems to work on two levels: it
is conceived as a social practice that originates in the periphery and moves to-
wards the centre, while at the same time moving from the ‘lower classes’ to the
‘upper classes’. This narrative was particularly visible in relation to writing prac-
tices such as tagging and pichação/pixação.34 The producers are perceived as
‘less than human’ or ‘non-human’, and often compared to animals and organisms
that spread disease (e.g., rats, pigs, insects and germs). In this discourse, the pro-
ducers are illiterate and unable to understand basic notions of decency and com-
munity, which coincides with the analysis of Ferrell as described above.35 The
main r isk of t his medical-epidemiological discourse of graffiti practices is that the
solution proposed for dealing with them, and especially with the producers, is
based on eradication. Having constructed them as a danger to society, local au-
thorities and the police may decide to physically remove them from the city (ei-
ther through forceful exclusion or via state-sanctioned murder) – as these ‘young
people’ were allegedly less than human in the first place. In short, this medical-
epidemiological discourse facilitates the suspension of basic human rights. Alt-
hough this narrative was limited to a few media stories and declined in frequency
in the last years under study, recent cases of excessive police brutality against
graffiti producers in Colombia, Brazil and the United States could represent the
factual ‘eradication’ of individuals that have been constructed as a ‘societal
threat’. This discourse was reproduced by some journalists and by authors of
weekly columns or op-eds.
In the documentary Pixo, which was created by pixadores in Brazil to pro-
mote their own narratives of the practice, several images show these young male
producers effortlessly climbing the façades of buildings while systematically
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33 Araya López 2015.
34 Araya López 2020, 177.
35 Ferrell 1999.
Graffiti and the Media |
placing their inscriptions on the walls.36 This same documentary includes a short
scene in which one of the pixadores confesses his inability to read basic Portu-
guese,37 while excelling at reading pixo (which is characterized as a different
code). Through these images, the documentary describes the territoriality of the
practice, which could explain why those who oppose the practice exploit its com-
parison with animality. Moreover, graffiti writers, taggers and pixadores are not
the only subset of the marginalized population that has been targeted by such
medical-epidemiological discourse; some media texts also mentioned homeless
people or drug users as part of this campaign in ‘defence of civility’.
. The legal discourse
The second media narrative of graffiti practices focuses on a broader discussion
of the law. In this discourse, the issue with graffiti is not necessarily its ‘contam-
inating’ nature, but its unauthorized transgression and what this implies in terms
of a society of law-abiding citizens. Again, this narrative was particularly promi-
nent in the case of graffiti writing, tagging, pichação/pixação and political graffiti
(Fig. 2). In this sense, the producers are recognized as human and not necessarily
uneducated or ignorant, but are nonetheless individuals characterized by a lack
of something, be it respect for common heritage or for the legal system. These
media texts understood the motivation behind these graffiti practices (for exam-
ple, physical exclusion or political disenfranchisement), but the tactics employed
by these ‘dissenters’ were considered ‘inappropriate’. This discourse relates to
the aforementioned political participation of subaltern/diasporic and counter-
publics, which would be ‘more appropriate’ if they utilized the official channels
designated by democratic institutions (from the perspective of those in power).
Although some graffiti practices may be read as a form of civil, democratic or aes-
thetic disobedience under this narrative,38 the discourse mainly focused on pro-
moting respect for the legal order.
Considering graffiti practices as a ‘clear’ violation of the law, the solutions
for dealing with the producers have included fines, community service and other
forms of societal retribution or ‘punishment’. In the documentary Pixo, several
pixadores report extrajudicial punishment in their interactions with local police.39
||
36 Wainer and Oliveira 2009.
37 De Barros e Silva 2010.
38 Celikates 2016; Markovits 2005; Neufeld 2015.
39 Wainer and Oliveira 2009.
| Alexander Araya López
Fig. 2: A political inscription by the Movimento Estudantil Popular Revolucionário (MEPR, ‘Pop-
ular Revolutionary Student Movement’) campaigning for an agrarian revolution in Brazil; pho-
tograph © Alexander Araya López, 2010.
It could be argued that in the case of political graffiti, if a citizen engages in ‘ille-
gal’ graffiti practices to promote a given cause or denounce a harm, and if she is
already ‘punished’ by the democratic system through exclusion or limited politi-
cal participation, is additional punishment a solution for her transgressions? In
relation to the ‘attack’ at the São Paulo Biennial in 2008, the arrested pixadora
experienced such an escalated punishment, as her lack of a legal address alleg-
edly became the main justification for her imprisonment, in contrast to the other
pixador, who was arrested at the event and later released.40 In this d isco urse, bo th
the ‘law’ and ‘democracy’ are constructed as ideals that offer every citizen the
same degree of protection or participation, with the nuances of both law and de-
mocracy in practice remaining unacknowledged.
||
40 Araya López 2020.
Graffiti and the Media |
. The criminogenic discourse
The third narrative identified in the media texts presented graffiti practices as a
gateway to more serious and violent forms of crime. In short, graffiti practices are
considered a first violation of the law, and if the ‘transgressors’ are not punished
for their acts, they develop a sense of confidence that can potentially lead them
to other criminal pursuits, ranging from drug dealing to rape or murder. This nar-
rative was not so frequent in the media texts, but it was discernible. In Brazil,
some regions of São Paulo – such as Cracolândia (Crackland), in which drug traf-
ficking and consumption are relatively common – are characterized by the prev-
alence of tagging, political graffiti and pichação/pixação. It could be argued that
derelict places are spaces in which ‘criminal activity’ accumulates, with graffiti
practices being just another manifestation of disorder and societal decay, instead
of being the direct cause of the criminal behaviour.
However, it is evident that unauthorized graffiti practices include some level
of ‘criminal activity’, which might include trespassing, destruction of private
property (for example, a padlock) or even minor theft (i.e., of spray cans, paint,
brushes etc.). Given the territorial nature of some graffiti practices, the potential
for rivalry between competing groups also cannot be excluded, which could turn
violent or ‘criminal’ in nature. The main risk associated with this narrative, as
with the medical-epidemiological discourse, is that it ignores the structural forces
that play a role in the reproduction of chaotic, ‘criminal’ spaces, while scapegoat-
ing the individuals as the main actors in these processes. The popularity of this
criminogenic approach may be traced back to the ‘Broken Windows theory’,41 an
approach that has been widely contested for its inherent unfairness towards ra-
cial minorities and other vulnerable populations.42
Media outlets frequently exploit these unverified relationships to add shock
value to their stories. In the case of pixadores in Brazil, TV shows such as Conexão
Repórter, presented by journalist Roberto Cabrini, have portrayed the practice
among other episodes treating controversial societal issues, including sexual
child abuse within the Catholic church, high-end prostitution or even cannibal-
ism. Unlike other media publications, in which the pixação may be presented as
exclusively masculine, this show also featured the voices of some female pixado-
ras, despite some degree of stereotypical and oversexualized representation of
the women in this movement, which could be damaging.43 Female participants in
||
41 Kelling and Wilson 1982.
42 Ferrell, Hayward and Young, 2008; Thompson 2015; Jay and Conklin 2017.
43 Araya López 2020, 188.
| Alexander Araya López
pixação were perceived as ‘rare’ or ‘secondary players’, and even in the case of
Caroline Pivetta da Mota – who became a central figure in the public debate about
pixação due to her role in the 2008 ‘attack’ on the São Paulo Biennial and her
later imprisonment – media stories frequently highlighted her ‘womanhood’ and
her ‘novice’ role in the practice. The dominant discourse is to present the practice
as exclusively masculine and aggressive.
. The social value discourse
In contrast to the media narratives discussed above, the social value discourse
centres on the positive aspect of graffiti practices, ranging from the improvement
of urban aesthetics to the potential entrepreneurialism of the producers. This dis-
course was used in relation to graffiti practices that characterize themselves as
being authorized and having a ‘pleasant’ aesthetic. Graffiti practices are consid-
ered a form of public art, and could potentially contribute to educating the pop-
ulation in the form of specific ‘awareness campaigns’, ranging from public health
to environmental preservation. Indeed, in several news stories, graffiti practices
were considered a way out of the ‘destructive’ pichação/pixação lifestyle and
practices, and workshops for rehabilitating pixadores and transforming them
into graffiti artists were promoted in the media. In terms of aesthetics, these work-
shops would prescribe more enjoyable, colourful and ‘creative’ (art)works, there-
fore taming the transgressive and non-communicative aspects of the pixação.
These graffiti practices are frequently sponsored by local or international
businesses, NGOs or governmental authorities, and although they are referred to
as ‘graffiti’, these sanctioned artworks could more accurately be categorized as
muralism.44 Instead of damaging the social body, graffiti practices in this narra-
tive contribute to fostering a sense of belonging within a community or the city,
and they are in harmony with ideas of heritage and civility. The main character-
istic of these graffiti practices is their communicative purpose, contrary to other
works, which may be encrypted and refuse to address society as a whole, as may
be the case for pichação/pixação or tagging.
In the Brazilian scenario, the social value of graffiti as a practice – mostly in
impoverished communities – is related to its capacity to foster self-esteem, offer-
ing at-risk young people the opportunity to get involved in something creative
||
44 In the Costa Rican case, one awareness campaign , aimed at discouraging illegal street racing,
featured an artwork presenting two scenarios – ‘life’ versus ‘death’ – at different speeds (80
km/h vs 180 km/h). The news article in La Nación referred to th is work as both graffiti and mural.
Graffiti and the Media |
and productive, rescuing them from their potential involvement in criminal ac-
tivities. Graffiti is offered among other courses and classes conceived as preven-
tion strategies aimed at transforming life in these communities and mitigating a
series of social issues (from drug dealing and addiction to health and education).
Some of these projects were linked to local youth organizations, such as Cidade
Escola Aprendiz or Quixote Spray Arte. The at-risk youth who participate in these
workshops and learn to create (authorized) graffiti works could allegedly profit
from this knowledge by inserting themselves in the art market, predominantly
through entrepreneurism.
. The artistic value discourse
The final narrative in the media texts highlights the artistic nature of graffiti prac-
tices, independently of whether they are found in the streets or within art institu-
tions. Graffiti, mostly associated with the global hip-hop movement, is perceived
as an art, a way to beautify the city and improve the physical landscape (Fig. 3).
The street art located on public and private surfaces, the creation of zones of tol-
erance for graffiti production, and the inclusion of the practice in the realm of
galleries and museums are included in this representation. As a result, the prod-
ucts may be used for the decoration of houses or businesses as well as in adver-
tising. This discourse generally applies to the category of street art and forms of
hip-hop graffiti.
In relation to the producers, these individuals are characterized as artistic and
creative youth who may have succeeded in the formal art market. Some creators
are elevated to the category of celebrities, with their own fandom. Some examples
in the Brazilian scenario include OSGEMEOS and their collaborators Nina (Nina
Pandolfo) and Nunca (Francisco Rodrigues da Silva). These graffiti artists have ac-
quired international recognition, and often they are active participants in global
graffiti culture.45 In this sense, their works are not only welcomed and celebrated,
but officially promoted (though this does not mean that their works are not threat-
ened). Indeed, it could be argued that both the creation and the removal of the
works of these graffiti artists is frequently tracked by local and global media.46
||
45 Araya López 2017.
46 Some graffiti pro ducers move between the legality and ‘illegality’ of the practices, oftentimes
creating their (art)works in authorized spaces or in collaboration with local authorities, while
also creating unauthorized (art)works, political graffiti or even pixação.
| Alexander Araya López
Fig. 3: The Folha de São Paulo article ‘Belezura subversiva’ (‘Subversive Beauty’, 28 March
2004, C3) reports on how graffiti transformed São Paulo, coexisting between the categories of
‘vandalism’ and ‘art’; © Folha de S.Paulo/Folhapress; reproduced with permission.
Graffiti and the Media |
Although there is evidence that the producers of unauthorized forms of tagging
and pichação/pixação have campaigned against the commodification of graffiti
practices, and have ‘attacked’ graffiti exhibitions hosted at established art insti-
tutions (e.g., the ‘attacks’ on the Choque Cultural gallery and at the São Paulo
Biennial in 2008), these producers have also engaged in the commercialization
of their own cultural products, creating artworks and documentaries either for
the consumption of their peers or to prevent the appropriation of their aesthet-
ics/art by other actors in the formal and informal art markets.47
Anti-graffiti and anti-pichação/pixação
strategies and policing
Although graffiti practices have achieved some recognition in many cities and
countries, the ‘fight’ against unauthorized or ‘unaesthetic’ forms of graffiti is
commonplace. Local authorities in São Paulo have implemented several official
strategies to tackle such forms of graffiti and pichação/pixação; these plans were
covered extensively in the Folha de São Paulo. The first such project was
Operação Belezura (Operation Beauty)¸ under the administration of Mayor Marta
Suplicy (Partido dos Trabalhadores). Secondly, in 2005, several articles referred
to anti-pichação strategies adopted by Mayor José Serra (Partido da Social Democ-
racia Brasileira). The third campaign was the Cidade Limpa (Clean City) law,
signed by Mayor Gilberto Kassab (Democratas) (Fig. 4). News stories reported on
the scope of these campaigns, referring to the economic costs of both graffiti and
pichação/pixação as well as statements from those affected by the phenomenon
or the expectations of the local inhabitants regarding these campaigns.
The main strategy has been the physical removal of graffiti or pichação/
pixação by clean-up campaigns. These operations may include volunteer groups
that take part in graffiti removal efforts, or private businesses that specialize in
such services and are therefore compensated by local authorities. Although
clean-up campaigns are theoretically an effective way to reduce the visual impact
of graffiti practices, this eradication strategy requires consistency, given that the
newly cleared spaces become an invitation for graffiti producers to re-appropriate
them. A recent controversial case in Brazil involved the Mayor of São Paulo, João
Doria (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira), who continued the long tradition
||
47 Siwi 2016.
| Alexander Araya López
Fig. 4: Folha de São Paulo reports on the ‘attack’ by a group of pichadores on May 23 Avenue,
which was a response to the clean-up campaign authorized by Mayor Gilberto Kassab (14 Sep-
tember 2009, C3); © Folha de S.Paulo/Folhapress; reproduced with permission.
Graffiti and the Media |
of (failed) projects to beautify the city.48 As part of his campaign against pich-
ação/pixação, one of the biggest avenues in the city, Avenida 23 de Maio (May 23
Avenue) – internationally known for its outstanding graffiti art – was painted
grey.49 The following declaration by graffiti artist Mauro Sergio Neri da Silva
(a.k.a. Veracidade) addresses the issue of spatial politics and the impossibility of
finding a common aesthetic that satisfies us all:
‘The new administration chose to get rid of t his gra ffiti i n a sensa tional ist way. Though they
said the project was against vandalism and tagging, they also painted over graffiti at the
same time.’ The day after finding his wall covered in grey, Da Silva began gently sponge-
washing the paint off, revealing the bright colours beneath but police officers stopped him
and hauled him to the police station, where he was charged with committing an ‘environ-
mental crime’. Soon, journalists gathered at the police station as well and by the time he
was released a few hours later, his plight had evolved into a symbolic case in the simmering
fight over graffiti’s place in São Paulo – between competing definitions of what makes a
beautiful city.50
Other artists, including the renowned OSGEMEOS, questioned the mayor’s tac-
tics. A court decision was needed to prevent the removal of additional graffiti
works, which subsequently required approval from local authorities on the mat-
ter of cultural heritage.51
A second strategy to eliminate or significantly reduce the quantity of unau-
thorized graffiti is based on the (ab)use of legislation. In this sense, laws and
other local policies could be enacted to target those who engage in unauthorized
graffiti production, with punishment ranging from community service to fines to
incarceration. In Brazil, some legislation has targeted the possession of materials
for graffiti production with heavy fines, technically making the sale of spray cans
to underage youth ‘illegal’. The spray cans also include a disclaimer stating that
pichação is a crime; here the term may refer to both political graffiti and to
pixo/pixação (as referred to by its own producers).52
Abuses of the law have also been reported by graffiti producers, a problem
that has been mentioned in some media texts: for example, news articles on
the female pixadora arrested during the ‘attack’ on the São Paulo Biennial. These
abuses include the application of laws that were created for other purposes
(e.g. to fight organized crime or against criminal incitement) against graffiti
||
48 Araya López 2015, 141–142.
49 Sims 2017.
50 Sims 2017.
51 Paulo 2019.
52 Araya López 2020.
| Alexander Araya López
producers.53 In the documentary Pixo (Fig. 5), pixadores describe various forms of
extrajudicial punishment exerted by the police, including forcing them to drink
paint or to chew a paint roller.54 In informal conversations with graffiti producers,
they have also reported that police authorities have tied them to outdoor public
infrastructure in cold weather – but that often it is possible to ‘escape’ punish-
ment by bribing the police officers or arguing that their work is ‘graffiti’, alluding
to its aesthetic value as opposed to the non-communicative and transgressive
pixo. In Belo Horizonte, a group of pixadores known locally as ‘Pixadores de Elite’
were the target of a 2016 police operation; their punishment included wearing
ankle bracelets to prevent them from going out at night.55
The physical eradication of graffiti producers is a more complex issue. In re-
cent years, several ‘scandals’ involving the police and graffiti writers, taggers and
pixadores have been widely discussed in Colombia, the United States and Brazil.
In Colombia, the 2011 death of Diego Felipe Becerra, a.k.a. Tripido, a 16-year-old
student, led to an investigation into police corruption, considering that police of-
ficers had planted evidence and manipulated the crime scene to make it look like
a confrontation with an armed robber.56 The case caused additional outrage when
Canadian singer Justin Bieber was allegedly provided a police escort while creat-
ing graffiti in central Bogotá.57 In South Florida, Israel ‘Reefa’ Hernandez-Llach,
an 18-year-old graffiti artist, died after he was shocked in the chest with a stun
gun in 2013. The police officer involved in this case, Jorge Mercado, was not pros-
ecuted as his actions were considered ‘legally justified’.58 Both the family and the
wider graffiti community have advocated for justice, and his life and death have
inspired a movie.59 A year later, Delbert ‘Demz’ Rodriguez Gutierrez, aged 21, was
spotted by police officers in Miami while tagging a building and fled the scene.
He later died due to severe brain injury after being struck by an unmarked police
car.60 According to local media, ‘Rodriguez was struck at the height of Art Basel
week, as thousands of visitors descend on Miami Beach and Miami for one of the
biggest art fairs in the world. Wynwood, which has gained international renown
in large part because of its street art, has become central to the festival’.61
||
53 Aguiar 2016.
54 Wainer and Oliveira 2009.
55 Aguiar 2016.
56 Acosta Villada 2021.
57 Brodzinsky 2013; ‘Críticas a Policía’ 2013.
58 Madigan 2015.
59 Kavana Dornbusch 2021.
60 Rabin 2014.
61 Rabin 2014.
Graffiti and the Media |
Fig. 5: The documentary Pixo, here reported by Folha de São Paulo (15 June 2008, E4), explored
the practice of pixação from the perspective of the producers, describing their political views,
their interactions with the police and their lives in São Paulo; © Folha de S.Paulo/Folhapress;
reproduced with permission.
| Alexander Araya López
In 2014, the pixadores Alex Dalla Vecchia Costa and Ailton dos Santos, 32 and 33
years old respectively, were also killed in a controversial encounter with police
officers in São Paulo. Though their relatives argue that they went into the build-
ing where they were killed with the explicit purpose of practising pixo,62 local po-
lice authorities have contested this story, stating that the young men were ‘rob-
bers’ caught in the act. In 2017, a local judge ruled that the police acted in
legitimate defence and absolved the officers involved in the incident, a decision
that was later confirmed in another court trial in 2018.63 Though these cases may
be considered relatively ‘infrequent’, and each of these ‘killings’ involves com-
plex issues such as race, migration status, age, gender and social class, the legal
decision to protect police officers could be read as a ‘concealed’ deterrence strat-
egy targeting ‘graffiti’ producers and pixadores (Fig. 6).
Fig. 6: A graffiti in Belo Horizonte depicts a military police officer as a wild pig; photograph
© Alexander Araya López, 2010.
||
62 Phillips 2018.
63 Tomaz 2018.
Graffiti and the Media |
Conclusions
This chapter has explained how contemporary graffiti practices are a complex
urban phenomenon that requires an analysis based on spatial politics, power and
the notion of the public sphere. The term ‘graffiti’ seems to be used freely in sev-
eral media outlets, and at least five different types of graffiti practices have been
identified: political graffiti, sponsored or branded graffiti, commissioned or ‘offi-
cial’ graffiti, territorial graffiti and street art. In relation to media narratives on
this diversity of graffiti practices, there are five main discourses. The medical-ep-
idemiological discourse portrays graffiti as contagious, with the producers being
reduced to a less-than-human or non-human status. The legal discourse empha-
sizes the alleged vandalism of the practice, while considering the producers to be
uneducated individuals lacking respect for society and common heritage. The
criminogenic discourse perceives graffiti practices as the gateway to a criminal
career, with its producers engaging in more serious forms of crime because of a
perceived ‘immunity’ to social punishment. The final two discourses are highly
intertwined, and include the social value discourse, which centres on the positive
effects that graffiti practices produce in a given society, ranging from a sense of
belonging to education through various awareness campaigns. This narrative re-
fers particularly to forms of authorized graffiti, which are often promoted as a
way out of illegal forms of graffiti production such as tagging, political graffiti
and pichação/pixação. Finally, the artistic value discourse further perceives
graffiti practices as ‘art’, including their potential commercialization in estab-
lished art institutions and the private market. This chapter also points out how
these diverse narratives are linked to anti-graffiti strategies, including the erad-
ication of graffiti works and of their producers and forms of legal and extrajudi-
cial punishment.
To conclude, several recommendations for future research are proposed:
while there is an extensive literature on graffiti production, the popularity of graf-
fiti practices from the perspective of consumers has been overlooked, as has re-
search on the self-proclaimed ‘victims’ of graffiti practices. In terms of consump-
tion, social media accounts that promote graffiti on Twitter or Instagram could be
tracked and analysed to understand how graffiti is consumed by global audi-
ences. It could be argued that the popularity of graffiti on the internet and in other
cultural products (e.g. books, movies, clothing) has contributed to the positive
shift in media narratives of graffiti practices. In relation to the ‘victims’ of graffiti
practices, ethnography of buildings/spaces frequently targeted by graffiti pro-
ducers combined with in-depth interviews of those affected by these forms of
writing could be useful in exploring the ‘real impact’ that graffiti productions
| Alexander Araya López
have on local inhabitants and private business, which may go beyond the eco-
nomic damages frequently highlighted in the media to include affective, psycho-
logical or emotive dimensions. Although this chapter briefly explores anti-graffiti
strategies and the role of the police in specific cases, there is a lack of research on
how police officers understand graffiti practices, their perceptions of the legality
or appropriateness of extrajudicial punishment, and their consumption of palat-
able forms of authorized graffiti (street art).
Regarding the artistic value discourse, the inclusion of street art in estab-
lished art institutions has yielded a series of other cultural products that monetize
graffiti practices, including documentaries/movies, books, clothing, souvenirs,
graffiti tours etc. More research is needed to explore how profitable these ‘com-
modities’ are and whether the graffiti artists are compensated in any way. Finally,
regarding pichação/pixação, tagging and political forms of graffiti, the effective-
ness of these graffiti practices as a form of radical politics, civil/democratic or
aesthetic disobedience should be studied, particularly considering that some of
these practices aim at correcting inherent deficits within democratic institutions,
and that political graffiti has been used to protest a wide variety of social issues,
from mass tourism to the climate crisis to societal restrictions during the COVID-
19 pandemic.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank the Folha de São Paulo/Folhapress for the kind per-
mission to reproduce original pages from their news articles in this chapter.
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