Can Brazilian Street Art Cred Survive Getting Off The Street?

It’s no secret Americans have a big time Brazilian fetish, but can the latest beautiful Brazillian import–street art–survive the commodification process of the New York art gallery scene? Such is the subject of a recent article in Blackbook Magazine entitled, “Brazilian Street Art: More Art, Less Street?” According to writer Beatrice Igne-Bianchi, after the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in Chelsea presented the medium as the latest thing to hang in your $10 million apartment last spring, people as mainstream as Christina Aguilera jumped on the bandwagon.

Aguilera’s artist of choice, 34 year-old Hamilton Yokota who goes by the pseudonym Titi Freak, (pictured in the baseball cap above), has done work for the likes of Adidas, Nike, and Ecko, so he was hardly uncommercialized by that point. And it turns out two Brazilian guys from the 1980’s credited with beginning what is now considered street art– Alex Vallauri and Carlos Matuck who were known for stenciling–were “white middle-class college students who participated in São Paulo’s 18th Biennial.” So says São Paulo’s Choque Cultural Gallery representative, Eduardo Saretta. Seems like the idea of street art as the self-expression of the urban poor is just an image anyway. After all, if you’re truly living hard on the street, do you really have time to be drawing pretty pictures? The entire article is here.
Brazilian Street Art: More Art, Less Street? [BlackBook Mag]
Image [Jonathan LeVine Gallery]