Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/24995
two esu rema sty outpost of ngs u architectural trans- " formation occurred toward the end of the nineteenth century when Brazil's wealthy landowners viewed it as a potential financial center and began investing heavily in its development. It is now South America's largest city. with almost eleven million people. and covers an area three times the size of Paris. Photographer Fred Troller arrived in this teeming metropolis to study street graffiti as a form of visual expression. "Graffiti from anywhere inter ests me: he writes" "It has an edge of rebellion. of excitement. It mirrors the universal acting out of the young against their elders. and of the have-nots against the establishment: Sao Paulo's visual environment is defined. in large part. by blocks of walls specifically established for painted and written messages. and the tools used by the city's graffiti artists are different from those of their North American counterparts. "Aerosols are expensive: Troller explains. "and rarely used. Most messages are painted with a brush or roller which gives them a distinctive calligraphic effect. a graphic structure very unlike the soft bubble images we see in New York." Over the years. and even in a matter of weeks. layers upon la'yers of paint are added to Sao Paulo's walls. To capture the resulting cacophony of textured. two-dimensional word images. Troller is less concerned with photography as an art than as a recorder of raw visual detail. Seeking "to feed sage back to the viewer as a recontextualized narrative" through precise framing. he hopes we "see fresh forms ... and perhaps reflect on how the or joys of street life might have produced such fresh forms."-Michael Cervieri