Pixadores Protest in Sao Paulo

From wooster collective:
Last week a group of 30 Pixadores stormed the Choque Cultural Gallery in protest against the "marketing, institutionalization and domestication of Street Art" by the galleries and media. Paintings by Gerald Laing, Speto, Titi Freak and others were tagged by the Pixadores.

-I tried to look up what the Pixadores (by the looks of the photos, a bunch of younger kids/ adults) are but I couldn't find much so I assume they are probably a graf crew in Sao Paulo, probably one of the biggest for that matter.
Choquecultural seems to be kind of a hot spot for some of the fresher of the Brazilian street artists at the moment. I have to say that the hype on a lot of the artists coming out of Brazil these days sort of takes precedence over the actual art, which is about 50 percent good and 50 percent bad rip offs.
It's hard to see something like this take place but I think there are a lot of underlying issues that are at the fore front of an event like this. You have to take into consideration the severity of the poverty within a city like Sao Paulo where a large percentage of the population is living in the Favelas or Shanty towns. There is also a rampant gang and drug problem that also thrives in the favelas as well as the city.
For the pixadores they probably see these artists, a variety of which they probably grew up along side of painting walls or even doing graffiti, selling there works for large sums of money in a gallery in Sao Paulo to the rich affluent of the city/world, and see it a contradiction to what the work was originally about (which is usually the case with art that is taken from the street and placed in a gallery setting). I'm sure that there was a bit of jealousy involved as well, but for these kids to see artists that at one point worked along side them in the streets making money off of it, it's kind of hard to swallow.
These sort of feelings about the commercial aspects of the art world are always going to be felt by the people standing along side it, outside of it and as well as inside of it. If you think twist doesn't feel a bit weird about selling his works for hundreds of thousands of dollars to rich collectors, then think about that market in relation to the people you surround yourself with. I always have had a hard time dealing with the fact that I myself, as well as a good portion of the people I surround myself with can't afford the art that I produce, as well as the fact that art is also a commodity to most. The bottom line though is these artists works are there livelihood, and only about 5-10 percent of these artists are actually making a sufficient living off the sale of there works. The commercial outlet for many serves a a means to pay the bills so these artists are able to keep creating new works. I know that artists working with big business companies to create branding or to tap into a specific market has been a tool used and possibly abused for quite some time and I think its really a matter of smart business practices by the artists involved.

Anyways back to the pixadores, I guess the frustrations of the younger kids just got the best of them. Being that most of these kids are probably aspiring artists as well and not specifically graf writers I kind of think that this move is a little bit disrespectful to all artists in the show. It's kind of sad that these kids find enemies on similar grounds but maybe they just don't give a fuck and maybe I just looked way too into this one...