Francisco Rodrigues da Silva
Encyclopedia
Francisco Rodrigues da Silva ("Nunca") is a prominent Brazilian "grafiteiro" artist who uses a graffiti
technique to create images that confront modern urban Brazil with its native past. His "tag" Nunca ("Never" in Portuguese) is an affirmation of his determination not to be bound by cultural or psychological constraints - "Nunca para as limitações culturais e mentais".
Nunca's works are described as narratives that tell often complex stories. Significant features of his art are a critical figurativism, the use of the city as a dynamic medium and an absence of the "pop art" influences characteristic of the mainstream of graffiti art.
Despite international recognition his work has come under criticism at home in Brazil because of the alleged betrayal of his cultural roots and philosophy that his gallery work and commercial design commissions represent.
He began his career at the age of 12 as a member of a gang spraying pichações - crude slogans and tag graffiti - on walls in Itaquera, the poor neighborhood in eastern São Paulo where the family lived. He adopted the tag Nunca to signify a rebellion against psychological and cultural constraints.
Three years later, after the family moved to Aclimação
, in the south-central part of the city, he made new friends and develop an interest in grafite, a more consciously artistic form. He has described this as a natural progression - he had always liked drawing. He started to produce striking, intensely coloured figures inspired by indigenous Brazilian culture that attracted first local and then foreign attention.
Starting to receive invitations to exhibit in Europe he began to paint canvases and produce sculptures, rejecting a more radical stance that would deny him the opportunity to exhibit in galleries. Although enjoying his work on the street he was keen to produce more elaborate work and saw this as another natural progression.
In 1997 he moved to the middle-class district of Cambuci
where he has a studio.
Nunca has referred to graffiti art as a political act that binds the artist’s interest to something concrete, "creating counterparts for the colonization to which Brazil has been subjected". He sees the simple act of painting in the streets as a "gesture of risk" in all senses, referring to the artists who have been shot and killed by the police or fallen to their deaths from buildings they had climbed in order to paint.
He claims not to follow set rules in the way he uses the city in his art. His work is figurative and he likes exploring the "decorative" aspect but more important is how he sees the site (the wall), how he feels, and the particular aspect - "impression painting", tagging, graffiti - he wants to emphasize in the final result. He also maintains that the theme of a work may be more important than the act of painting itself.
Nunca argues that the essence of graffiti art is the fact that it is located out in the street, completely autonomous and uncommitted. In the past he has maintained that when the language and experience of graffiti is used outside the street context for commercial and/or other purposes, it ceases to be graffiti. Artists who regard themselves as graffiti artists but lack first-hand experience, may use the language of graffiti but they cannot master it. When someone without direct experience uses the language in order to exploit the "look", the art of graffiti is trivialized. However his recent work for the sportswear manufacturer Nike has attracted criticism for its alleged betrayal of loyalty to street culture.
Nunca sees himself "as a wandering record of my experiences" and his work aims to create "subtle and clear looks". To create the "gaze" that is a key feature of the characters in his works, he looks at his own image in the mirror to find a model for his character's eyes.
Nunca often uses a technique of closely parallel and interwoven lines known as Dutch mesh in his depictions of Native Brazilian and Afro-Brazilian figures in prominent urban locations that reinsert these figures - especially the Native Brazilians, victims of genocide - into the daily life of the city. A key feature of his work is the dispassionate "gaze" with which his characters engage the passer-by in dialogue. Nunca's characters witness and interact with the city. The interaction between the mural and the streetscape gives vigour to his figurative narratives.
(the artist twins Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo) and Otavio Pandolfo's wife, Nina.
He is particularly interested in the foreign artists whose work recorded historical Brazil as it was at the time of the conquest such as Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied
, invited by Dom Pedro II to catalogue the country's native plant and animal species and indigenous peoples. His other areas of artistic research include Jean-Baptiste Debret
, Native Brazilian culture, the African Brazilian Orchestra (Orquesta Afro-Brasileira) and Fritjof Capra
’s The Tao of Physics
.
Prominent among the works is Nunca's "Imitação de Vida" on Avenida Brigadeiro Luís Antônio, São Paulo. The literal meaning of the Portuguese title is "Imitation of Life", which spoken aloud can also be understood as "Imitação devida" - "due imitation". Bonvicino describes the picture as a pastiche of the work of the erudite pop artist Roy Lichtenstein
, but emphasises the relationship between the work, featuring a character of indigenous appearance, and its urban context. "… the character’s eyes are hollow: his irises, almost full circles, remind us vaguely of snakes that leap from the orbits; the face (outlined by a sharp white color, as well as the black and prominent nose) is taut, intensely tightened, the incisive nose and the dour, angry mouth instill fear in those who see him. A hasty person could say that his gaze is empty and conveys the emptiness of our time. However, in addition to that, the character’s face also unveils fear. Therefore, the passersby, in quiet dialogue with the graffiti, are inexorably incorporated in it, into a mesh of paranoia and fright."
Another work painted on a wall in Athens
shows a character with African/Native-Brazilian features helping a huge arm emerging from the sidewalk to force a Cadillac
into the mouth of another character of more distinctively Native Brazilian appearance; the former wears a (plastic?) mask, the latter has a helmet-like hairstyle similar to a Native Brazilian.
In a work painted beneath a São Paulo flyover, the sharp black eyes of an Afro-Brazilian man convey a critical gaze. A second, slightly smaller face with distinctive Native Brazilian features is composed of interwoven strands of brown and black and the eyes, with a gaze that is both aggressive and uncertain, are diamonds. Nunca uses the word "canibal" ("cannibal") to express the competitive relationship between the two characters. Faced with the struggle for survival, human sympathy disappears. The message is reinforced by a palette of different shades of red.
Nunca's recurrent African/Native Brazilian characters display their sombre gaze in two other prominent São Paulo locations. The first, again on Avenida Brigadeiro Luís Antônio, is an elaborate depiction of a black Native Brazilian painted next to the entrance to a garage. An inscription on the door reads: "03/ mcs/ e./ nun/ ca". Nunca has added his own signature to someone else’s graffiti, incorporating it into the work. Bonvicino describes the reference as typifying the way graffiti and tagging
link to the riddles and codes of popular culture. The period mark after "e" ("and" in Portuguese), a conjunction halted by a full stop, echoes the diamonds set in the character's sad eyes. In sharp contrast to the eyes an aquiline nose and bright, white teeth in a half-open mouth reveal anger and vitality.
The second sad-eyed image, at Largo do Cambuci, shows the contorted figure of an Afro-Brazilian man with very large, drooping ears. Bonvicino describes a face that seems to rise from a wire spiral that stands in for the body. The artist addresses the spectator through the components of the face. Two eyes are insufficient, the four eyes provided by two male figures are needed to witness what the face sees. Their gazes display indignation (the left-hand figure) and emptiness (the right-hand figure), like those of the protagonist of "Imitação de Vida". The object of their gaze lies outside the picture. Between the eyes the character’s nose is a naked Native Brazilian turning his back to the onlooker, suggesting the wish to distance the character from what is being seen and heard. Three ears appear to require a fourth in the form of a tire. Three mouths are open.
Nunca and the Pandolfos were invited to participate in a street-art exhibition at the Tate Modern
Gallery in London that led to a significant re-evaluation of their work by their home city. Following the introduction by the Mayor of São Paulo Gilberto Kassab
of the "Cidade Limpa
" ("Clean City") law aimed at eliminating forms of visual pollution
, including graffiti, an official clean-up campaign led to many images being lost and others damaged. A 680-meter mural painted by the Pandolfos, Nunca and Otavio Pandolfo's wife Nina on retaining walls along the 23 de Maio expressway was half-obliterated with gray paint despite having been officially approved. Recognition abroad of the significance of the artists' work stimulated a public discussion of what constituted art which led to the creation of a registry of street art to be preserved by the city of São Paulo.
The popularity of the "grafiteiros" has provided them with access to the commercial art world where their work commands high prices. The artists have been commissioned by major corporate interests such as the sportswear manufacturer Nike to provide designs for high profile projects.
to design a team outfit pack for the Brazilian national football team. Although it was claimed that Nunca's designs paid homage to the traditional Brazilian graffiti style of "pixação" with his design work, this commercial venture led to condemnation by members of the Brazilian graffiti community, highlighting the difference between pixação - a transgressive use of graffiti as a form of social and political protest - and grafite - an art form using the urban fabric as its canvas.
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
technique to create images that confront modern urban Brazil with its native past. His "tag" Nunca ("Never" in Portuguese) is an affirmation of his determination not to be bound by cultural or psychological constraints - "Nunca para as limitações culturais e mentais".
Nunca's works are described as narratives that tell often complex stories. Significant features of his art are a critical figurativism, the use of the city as a dynamic medium and an absence of the "pop art" influences characteristic of the mainstream of graffiti art.
Despite international recognition his work has come under criticism at home in Brazil because of the alleged betrayal of his cultural roots and philosophy that his gallery work and commercial design commissions represent.
Background
Nunca was born in 1983. He was raised by an aunt from the age of six until he was 12 after his mother went to work as a housemaid in Italy. He first met his father at the beginning of the 1990s.He began his career at the age of 12 as a member of a gang spraying pichações - crude slogans and tag graffiti - on walls in Itaquera, the poor neighborhood in eastern São Paulo where the family lived. He adopted the tag Nunca to signify a rebellion against psychological and cultural constraints.
Three years later, after the family moved to Aclimação
Aclimação
Aclimação is a prosperous neighbourhood in the central region of the city of São Paulo, Brazil.It is located in the municipal district of Liberdade, in the Sé Subprefecture.- History :...
, in the south-central part of the city, he made new friends and develop an interest in grafite, a more consciously artistic form. He has described this as a natural progression - he had always liked drawing. He started to produce striking, intensely coloured figures inspired by indigenous Brazilian culture that attracted first local and then foreign attention.
Starting to receive invitations to exhibit in Europe he began to paint canvases and produce sculptures, rejecting a more radical stance that would deny him the opportunity to exhibit in galleries. Although enjoying his work on the street he was keen to produce more elaborate work and saw this as another natural progression.
In 1997 he moved to the middle-class district of Cambuci
Cambuci
Cambuci is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro. Its population was 14,439 and its area is 562 km². Its population as of 2009 is 18,256 by newest recalation. It is very popular among tourists....
where he has a studio.
Artistic philosophy
Asked how he would distinguish a talented graffiti artist from an ordinary tagger, Nunca insists that he is not an art critic but he believes that what determines whether a piece of art is good or not is a combination of the aesthetic quality of the piece and the artist's commitment to his work, and, in the case of graffiti, the artist's knowledge how to make active use of the city as a medium.Nunca has referred to graffiti art as a political act that binds the artist’s interest to something concrete, "creating counterparts for the colonization to which Brazil has been subjected". He sees the simple act of painting in the streets as a "gesture of risk" in all senses, referring to the artists who have been shot and killed by the police or fallen to their deaths from buildings they had climbed in order to paint.
He claims not to follow set rules in the way he uses the city in his art. His work is figurative and he likes exploring the "decorative" aspect but more important is how he sees the site (the wall), how he feels, and the particular aspect - "impression painting", tagging, graffiti - he wants to emphasize in the final result. He also maintains that the theme of a work may be more important than the act of painting itself.
Nunca argues that the essence of graffiti art is the fact that it is located out in the street, completely autonomous and uncommitted. In the past he has maintained that when the language and experience of graffiti is used outside the street context for commercial and/or other purposes, it ceases to be graffiti. Artists who regard themselves as graffiti artists but lack first-hand experience, may use the language of graffiti but they cannot master it. When someone without direct experience uses the language in order to exploit the "look", the art of graffiti is trivialized. However his recent work for the sportswear manufacturer Nike has attracted criticism for its alleged betrayal of loyalty to street culture.
Practical elements
Nunca has said that he enjoys walking around the city, finding new places to paint. After he returns home he organises his experiences and thoughts on paper. An initial drawing may serve as inspiration for a variety of different creative possibilities - a painting, an installation, a play, etc. The chosen location may complement the type of work he is planning or may simply be a medium for his subject, somewhere he can display his work. He aims to allow a relationship to be established between the passer-by and the painting that is as subjective a component of the work as the act of painting itself.Nunca sees himself "as a wandering record of my experiences" and his work aims to create "subtle and clear looks". To create the "gaze" that is a key feature of the characters in his works, he looks at his own image in the mirror to find a model for his character's eyes.
Nunca often uses a technique of closely parallel and interwoven lines known as Dutch mesh in his depictions of Native Brazilian and Afro-Brazilian figures in prominent urban locations that reinsert these figures - especially the Native Brazilians, victims of genocide - into the daily life of the city. A key feature of his work is the dispassionate "gaze" with which his characters engage the passer-by in dialogue. Nunca's characters witness and interact with the city. The interaction between the mural and the streetscape gives vigour to his figurative narratives.
Influences and references
Nunca was described as "one of the rising stars of the São Paulo graffiti scene" in the 2005 book Graffiti Brazil which devoted an entire chapter to his work. He has worked closely with other major figures on the São Paulo graffiti scene including Os GêmeosOs Gêmeos
Os Gêmeos are graffiti artist identical twin brothers from São Paulo, Brazil, whose real names are Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo. They started painting graffiti in 1987 and gradually became a main influence in the local scene, helping to define Brazil's own style...
(the artist twins Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo) and Otavio Pandolfo's wife, Nina.
He is particularly interested in the foreign artists whose work recorded historical Brazil as it was at the time of the conquest such as Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied
Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied
Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied was a German explorer, ethnologist and naturalist....
, invited by Dom Pedro II to catalogue the country's native plant and animal species and indigenous peoples. His other areas of artistic research include Jean-Baptiste Debret
Jean-Baptiste Debret
Jean-Baptiste Debret was a French painter, who produced many valuable lithographs depicting the people of Brazil.-Biography:...
, Native Brazilian culture, the African Brazilian Orchestra (Orquesta Afro-Brasileira) and Fritjof Capra
Fritjof Capra
Fritjof Capra is an Austrian-born American physicist. He is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, and is on the faculty of Schumacher College....
’s The Tao of Physics
The Tao of Physics
The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism is a book by physicist Fritjof Capra, published in 1975 by Shambhala Publications of Berkeley, California. It was a bestseller in the United States, and has been published in 43 editions in 23 languages...
.
Work
The contemporary Brazilian poet Régis Bonvicino has described some of Nunca's major works in Sao Paulo and the way they illustrate key themes in his work in an article written to accompany an interview with the artist. He focuses in particular on Nunca's characters, Afro-Brazilians and Native Brazilians, and their engagement with the modern urban environment, expressed through the gaze through which they interact with the passer-by.Prominent among the works is Nunca's "Imitação de Vida" on Avenida Brigadeiro Luís Antônio, São Paulo. The literal meaning of the Portuguese title is "Imitation of Life", which spoken aloud can also be understood as "Imitação devida" - "due imitation". Bonvicino describes the picture as a pastiche of the work of the erudite pop artist Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...
, but emphasises the relationship between the work, featuring a character of indigenous appearance, and its urban context. "… the character’s eyes are hollow: his irises, almost full circles, remind us vaguely of snakes that leap from the orbits; the face (outlined by a sharp white color, as well as the black and prominent nose) is taut, intensely tightened, the incisive nose and the dour, angry mouth instill fear in those who see him. A hasty person could say that his gaze is empty and conveys the emptiness of our time. However, in addition to that, the character’s face also unveils fear. Therefore, the passersby, in quiet dialogue with the graffiti, are inexorably incorporated in it, into a mesh of paranoia and fright."
Another work painted on a wall in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
shows a character with African/Native-Brazilian features helping a huge arm emerging from the sidewalk to force a Cadillac
Cadillac
Cadillac is an American luxury vehicle marque owned by General Motors . Cadillac vehicles are sold in over 50 countries and territories, but mostly in North America. Cadillac is currently the second oldest American automobile manufacturer behind fellow GM marque Buick and is among the oldest...
into the mouth of another character of more distinctively Native Brazilian appearance; the former wears a (plastic?) mask, the latter has a helmet-like hairstyle similar to a Native Brazilian.
In a work painted beneath a São Paulo flyover, the sharp black eyes of an Afro-Brazilian man convey a critical gaze. A second, slightly smaller face with distinctive Native Brazilian features is composed of interwoven strands of brown and black and the eyes, with a gaze that is both aggressive and uncertain, are diamonds. Nunca uses the word "canibal" ("cannibal") to express the competitive relationship between the two characters. Faced with the struggle for survival, human sympathy disappears. The message is reinforced by a palette of different shades of red.
Nunca's recurrent African/Native Brazilian characters display their sombre gaze in two other prominent São Paulo locations. The first, again on Avenida Brigadeiro Luís Antônio, is an elaborate depiction of a black Native Brazilian painted next to the entrance to a garage. An inscription on the door reads: "03/ mcs/ e./ nun/ ca". Nunca has added his own signature to someone else’s graffiti, incorporating it into the work. Bonvicino describes the reference as typifying the way graffiti and tagging
Graffiti
Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
link to the riddles and codes of popular culture. The period mark after "e" ("and" in Portuguese), a conjunction halted by a full stop, echoes the diamonds set in the character's sad eyes. In sharp contrast to the eyes an aquiline nose and bright, white teeth in a half-open mouth reveal anger and vitality.
The second sad-eyed image, at Largo do Cambuci, shows the contorted figure of an Afro-Brazilian man with very large, drooping ears. Bonvicino describes a face that seems to rise from a wire spiral that stands in for the body. The artist addresses the spectator through the components of the face. Two eyes are insufficient, the four eyes provided by two male figures are needed to witness what the face sees. Their gazes display indignation (the left-hand figure) and emptiness (the right-hand figure), like those of the protagonist of "Imitação de Vida". The object of their gaze lies outside the picture. Between the eyes the character’s nose is a naked Native Brazilian turning his back to the onlooker, suggesting the wish to distance the character from what is being seen and heard. Three ears appear to require a fourth in the form of a tire. Three mouths are open.
Cultural impact
Having developed their reputation in São PauloSão Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
Nunca and the Pandolfos were invited to participate in a street-art exhibition at the Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
Gallery in London that led to a significant re-evaluation of their work by their home city. Following the introduction by the Mayor of São Paulo Gilberto Kassab
Gilberto Kassab
Gilberto Kassab is a Brazilian politician, current mayor of São Paulo. His term ends in 2012. A civil engineer and economist, of Lebanese descent, Kassab took over from José Serra, after Serra decided to run for governor of São Paulo...
of the "Cidade Limpa
Cidade Limpa
Lei Cidade Limpa is a law of the city of São Paulo, Brazil promulgated in 2006 that prohibits advertising such as that of outdoor posters. It was proposed by mayor Gilberto Kassab....
" ("Clean City") law aimed at eliminating forms of visual pollution
Visual pollution
Visual pollution is the term given to unattractive and man-made visual elements of a vista, a landscape, or any other thing that a person does not feel comfortable to look at. Visual pollution is an aesthetic issue, referring to the impacts of pollution that impair one's ability to enjoy a vista or...
, including graffiti, an official clean-up campaign led to many images being lost and others damaged. A 680-meter mural painted by the Pandolfos, Nunca and Otavio Pandolfo's wife Nina on retaining walls along the 23 de Maio expressway was half-obliterated with gray paint despite having been officially approved. Recognition abroad of the significance of the artists' work stimulated a public discussion of what constituted art which led to the creation of a registry of street art to be preserved by the city of São Paulo.
The popularity of the "grafiteiros" has provided them with access to the commercial art world where their work commands high prices. The artists have been commissioned by major corporate interests such as the sportswear manufacturer Nike to provide designs for high profile projects.
Exhibitions
Nunca has exhibited in Brazil at the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo and around the world, notably in Greece at the AfroBrasil Museum and in the UK at Tate Modern, the first major display of street art at a public museum in London. The brickwork of the Tate Modern's external walls was decorated with paintings 15 metres high by the artists featured in the exhibition, the Pandolfo twins and Nunca, Blu from Bologna, the Parisian artist JR, the New York collaborative group Faile and Sixeart from Barcelona.Commercial design work
In 2010 Nunca was commissioned by the sportswear manufacturer NikeNike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
to design a team outfit pack for the Brazilian national football team. Although it was claimed that Nunca's designs paid homage to the traditional Brazilian graffiti style of "pixação" with his design work, this commercial venture led to condemnation by members of the Brazilian graffiti community, highlighting the difference between pixação - a transgressive use of graffiti as a form of social and political protest - and grafite - an art form using the urban fabric as its canvas.
External links
- Artists We Love: Nunca at friendswelove.com http://friendswelove.com/blog/artists-we-love-nunca/
- Bomb It: Nunca http://www.metacafe.com/watch/bg-4001568/bomb_it_nunca/
- MANIFESTO Profile: Nunca http://vimeo.com/14109849
- Galerie Magda Danysz, Paris http://www.magda-gallery.com/en/nunca
- Brasil True Colors promotional collection for Nike http://listenrecovery.wordpress.com/category/nunca-brazil/
- NUNCA em Milão promotional video for nikesportswear.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmpK13ZypwU
- NUNCA.mov promotional video for nikesportswear.com, 5 March 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVeCzB_EK7o&NR=1
- THE GRAFFITI PROJECT ON KELBURN CASTLE (Os Gêmeos, Nina, Nunca)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__C-MjmVUrU
- Poetic Tales for Nunca's Gazes - article by Régis Bonvicino in Sibila - Poesia e Cultura English http://sibila.com.br/index.php/sibila-english/380-poetic-tales-for-nuncas-gazes/Portuguese http://ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/opiniao/regis_bonvicino/2008/07/10/fabulas_poeticas_para_os_olhares_de_nunca_1432620.html alternative source for citations with lost link)
- Pau Brasileiro is Over III exhibition catalogue / pictures http://listenrecovery.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/nunca-arte-universal-from-sao-paulo-br-photos-by-nunca/
- UOL Entretenimento interview with Nunca http://entretenimento.uol.com.br/ultnot/multi/2009/03/20/04023868D4A98326.jhtm?grafite-em-sao-paulo--nunca-04023868D4A98326, accessed 2 May 2011