Propaganda volta às ruas de São Paulo com anúncio de cerveja

Sao Paulo has been ad free for several years now after the swift actions of its mayor brought a reckless situation under control. While I have not visited Sao Paulo, images suggested that everything from the largest billboards to the smallest postings came down quickly after the implementation of Lei Cidade Limpa. According to sources in Sao Paulo this just changed with the implementation of bus shelter advertising and freestanding ads affixed to city clocks. I am unsure of the politics of this new action which seems to go against the very notion of the "clean city law" but what is clear is that the spirit of the law has been broken with this new development. No longer is the city controlled by an overwhelming proliferation of commercial messages but in its place we have an institutionalized use of public space for commercial messaging. While it may not appear as blighting as the disarray that stood years before, the effects of widespread commercial imagery on the society as a whole is nonetheless the same. I look forward to seeing what the community response to this overnight betrayal of the "clean city law" which was so popular amongst Paolistas.

VIA: Folha De S. Paulo

Seis anos e três meses após o início da vigência da Lei Cidade Limpa, coube a uma marca de cerveja abrir caminho para a volta da publicidade nas ruas de São Paulo. [Mais Aqui]

The city that went to war on advertising

Sao Paulo banned all outdoor advertising in 2007 on the understanding that getting rid of the commercial blight was in "the highest degree of public interest, seeking as it does to promote the public good essential for a better quality of urban life".

VIA The Independent

Sao Paulo has banned billboards, and residents are using a hotline set up by the Mayor to report any and all offenders

By Hugh O'Shaughnessy

Sunday, 8 November 2009

Stealthily, cleverly, implacably, the officials of Sao Paulo – its 20 million inhabitants make it one of the world's largest cities – are after their prey. Since the first day of 2007, morning, noon, night and at weekends, Argus-eyed, they wait and watch for it on foot and in their vehicles. Their weapon is the Lei Cidade Limpa, the Clean City Law. [MORE]

“Graffiti” to be legalized in Brazil?

I knew it was a forced to be reckoned with but didn't know it was straight up legal.

VIA OtherThings

Last week a law was passed in Brazil legalizing graffiti. But this doesn’t mean exactly what you may think. In Brazil, “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. How will this play out in practice, I wonder?

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Brazil, graffiti is being taught in schools, recognized in an International Biennial, and receiving special protection from the buff. Sounds like a pretty civilized country to me.

Props and muito obrigado to Raquel Rabbit for the link, and for helping me out with the subtleties of Brazilian Portuguese. Read on for my poor (but better than Google’s) English translation of the first article above:

Magela seeks approval of the law that decriminalizes graffiti

Author of the draft law 706/07, which decriminalizes graffiti, Mr. Geraldo Magela (Workers’ Party, Federal District) yet ruled on the request of the groups, Task Force FT Cruz and Recanto das Emas Crew who asked the mayor, Mr Arlindo Chinaglia (Workers’ Party, São Paulo) that the project be voted on as soon as possible.

Magela wants to see achieved this dream of young people connected to graffiti and recalls the need to separate grafite (graffiti) from what is a crime, pichação (tagging). “Graffiti is one of the elements of great importance for the Hip-Hop movement, whose actions raise the consciousness of many young people today,” he said.

The proposition amends Article 65 of Federal Law 9.605/98, which provides for punishment, without distinction, for whoever tags, paints graffiti on, or by other means harms facades of buildings or city monuments. In drafting proposed by Magela, the punishment will be increased in the case of crime against monuments that have landmark status due to their artistic value. Manufacturers of spray paint will have 180 days after the sanction of the bill to make changes in packaging, indicating the sale only for people over 18 years.

Another important point is the distinction Magela makes between tagging and graffiti. Graffiti will be recognized as “artistic expression” that seeks to enhance public or private property, as long as it’s done with the consent of the property owner, explained Magela.