Graffiti legal in Brazil/low priority in SF

This is an aside titled 'Graffiti legal in Brazil/low priority in SF' dated 3/30/09

Graffiti is a “low priority” in SF. “People would say, ‘Why do you bother? It’s just going to be back tomorrow.’” Meanwhile, in Brazil graffiti’s legal, kinda: “‘graffiti’ (grafite in Portuguese) refers not so much to the entire hip hop tradition of writing, but more specifically to colorful pieces, characters, abstractions, and other painted street art. In everyday speech, it’s often contrasted against pichação, which is Brazil’s home-grown style of tagging, so named because its first practicioners used tar (piche) stolen from construction sites. The semantic distinction echoes a sentiment I often hear here in the US: ‘I like the artistic stuff, but not, you know, those ugly scribbles.’ This distinction is part of what’s being put into law. What’s interesting about this law is that it appears to recognize the artistic and cultural value of the graffiti itself, not just the monetary value of the property it’s painted on.”

Posted by Joanne on Mar. 30, 2009

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