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one of the essences of graffiti Three names are behind Choque. With the climate of change, Choque
is to expose conflicts, release energies, In addition to the founding couple, welcomes various types of collaboration,
expose the system’s splinters and historian Eduardo Saretta, a member such as exhibiting together in museums
create instant art, of en made in the of the art collective shn, also works. and galleries here or abroad. This is how
dark of night, seasoned with humor And it is Saretta who does most of the gallery performed with part of its
and ideological residues. In tune with the traveling to organize international cast at Jonathan Levine, in New York.
other cosmos, for 20 years the Choque productions. “He is responsible for “This exhibition was very important
Cultural gallery has emerged on the contacting artists from abroad,” says because it was reported in the New York
São Paulo art circuit interested in an Baixo. The trio organizes exhibitions, Times, which considered the exhibition
expanded, diversified production, with residencies and interventions as something new”. In 2009, another
outside the traditional art system and throughout the city. This was the case important landmark, the Museu de Arte
involving other interlocutors. Mariana with the Buenos Aires action at Choque, de São Paulo (Masp) received Choque
Martins and Baixo Ribeiro, architects in 2009, when ten artists took up with the exhibition De Dentro Para Fora,
and researchers, opened up to the art residency in São Paulo for two months De Fora Para Dentro, curated by the
of tattooing, performance, hip hop, and carried out various interventions trio. Among the successful experiences,
skateboarding, punk rock, all in tune throughout the city. Among them was Baixo considers the Choque Cultural
with the dissolution of the cultural tec, an Argentine artist who has been exhibition at Fortes Vilaça, in 2006,
boundaries of a mediatized society. They part of the cast of Choque since 2006. at the beginning of the gallery, to be
believed that the art world needed this How did the idea of launching a a turning point. “A professionalizing
new energy. A provocative “disorder” gallery so different from the existing experience for young artists’’.
then becomes the driving force of ones come up? “I entered fau/usp in In 2002 they decided to produce
an aesthetic program whose ideas 1982 and found Mariana and several prints at affordable prices for new
emerge from ruptures and not from artists. We used to hang out with Alex collectors. “But it wasn’t enough just
continuities. The poetic dimension Flemming, Mauricio Villaça, Carlos to sell engravings”. The house they were
is driven by its socializing function. Matuck, Arthur Fajardo, who did graffiti. installed in was a place of work. “In the
In this context, formal, conservative They were artists who had a vision of the basement, the walls were full of graffiti,
criticism, which observes this type of city as a platform for communication stickers and upstairs we made the place
art from a distance, has given way to and also for art”. They formed a tidier to receive print buyers”.
a “smarter” glimpse with tentacles in group af er Alex Vallauri, pioneer of The effervescence that hovered
experimental exhibitions by emerging the movement in Brazil, Hudinilson over Choque was not enough to unite
young artists and audiences. A pioneer Júnior, John Howard, Walter Silveira, some supposedly similar groups.
in urban art in Brazil, Choque, right in author of the iconic Hendrix Mandrake Baixo recalls that some tattoo artists,
the first years of activity, becomes a Mandrix (1978/2018). They used the city for example, did not know the artists
contemporary reference with crossings as a place of communication and as a of the graffiti group. “To bring them
of pioneering poetics. gave way to a poetic issue. “Today, many things are together, we decided to hold the
“smarter” glimpse with tentacles in back and many works/poetries, made in Calaveras (Skulls) show, on the Day of
experimental exhibitions by emerging the style of lambe-lambe, are stamped the Dead, bringing together 15 graffiti
young artists and audiences. A pioneer especially in the center of São Paulo. The artists and 15 tattoo artists, who sold
in urban art in Brazil, Choque, right in artistic diversity is great, some works their work to each other”. Choque’s
the first years of activity, becomes a are printed in woodcuts, others mix public saw the exhibition as a space
contemporary reference with crossings everything and there are those that are for buying prints. People from fashion,
of pioneering poetics. inspired by the haikai poem”. digital culture, video or those simply
There has always been a generalized The generation of graffiti artists attracted by the ebullition passed by.
anxiety to restore art to life, to everyday af er Vallauri, according to Baixo, was “Curators, advertising company owners,
life and to society. Baixo Ribeiro recalls not linked to them. “Speto, one of the people from the arts like Carla Camargo,
that Choque, above all, is an idea that recognized artists, did not look at Emanoel Araújo, José Olympio also
worked. “Actually, it’s a concept that, Vallauri’s work”. He was in touch with arrived to talk”. It was from there that
to put it mildly, means that, when the hip hop, a strong movement that mixes they decided to discuss the space
different are put in shock, they generate music, dance, skateboarding, something of art and organized the exhibition
energy, and we manage to direct that related to behavior. This group wanted Cata Lixo. “We spoke with the owner
energy towards a creation with social to develop their own style, do something of the restaurant next to the gallery
impact. Basically, this is our method”. more authorial. “The musical movement that opened the space for us to do
Restless researchers, the couple influenced many artists, provoking the something. At the house of indigenous
broadens some reflections on color by possibility of the graffiti artist being an artifacts, also nearby, the owner
tattooing their bodies, giving life and author”. In the transition from the 1990s suggested that we look for the graffiti
movement to a tangle of traits they have to the 2000s, signed graffiti emerged, artist Nunca, who had contact with
chosen. They literally demonstrate that the when Choque realized that there were indigenous artists, and so we organized
perception of the chromatic phenomenon artists who dominated the large scale. an exhibition with works by Diego
goes far beyond the limits of a screen, a “We thought there might be a market, Karaja”. The set of actions carried out by
video or a wall. The spirit of graffiti starts most artists worked in advertising”. Choque Cultural in these two decades
there, with the idea of walking down the When hip hop appears with a worker reaffirms the gallery as a place where
street, of performing the way you want and factory concern, the lyrics start to contemporary aesthetic emergencies
and with whom to show up. be spray-painted. find various channels for dialogue.
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