Things you find under bridges in Rio

The photo, taken in Botafogo,  shows one of my favourite pieces of street art in Rio. Technically excellent, stylistically interesting and (hopefully) it makes you think.

I’m not great with art history and arty references, but this piece by How & Nosm reminded me of Picasso and Cubism in general (I just googled this to make sure I wasn’t being utterly ridiculous. Can now confirm there is definitely a resemblance!).

It’s a beautiful piece by identical twins Davide and Raoul Perre, better known as How & Nosm. They are known as the other identical twins in the graffiti world, in reference to Brazil’s very own Os Gêmeos (the twins).

Born in Spain, How & Nosm grew up in Düsseldorf and are now based in New York. They spent the second half of 2009 in Rio and did a lot of amazing work. I love their style which is quite distinct from most of the other street art I see in Rio. But what I particularly like about this piece is it’s placement. By putting this unhappy looking guy under a bridge it becomes a sad reminder of the homeless people who sleep on the streets (often under bridges) of all major cities in the world.

Cramped, unhappy, clutching a bottle – powerful stuff.

A few days after I first saw How & Nosm’s work, I noticed another work of graffiti as social commentary, this time in Catete. Not beautiful at all – harsh and to the point:

The main caption says “I am your rubbish/trash”. Above there is a small reference to crack and to the right there is a white arrow pointing down with the word “future”.

It’s an ugly piece about an ugly subject. It isn’t just Rio’s problem, but you do see it a fair bit in some parts of town – people who probably had very little chance to begin with, addicted to crack and literally sleeping on the streets.   


Moving over to the neighbourhood of Laranjeiras, there’s some more pretty awesome graffiti under the bridge here too.

Look out! There’s a crazy robot about to eat you!

A little further along, where this bridge meets the ground, I noticed that some huge boulders and rubble had been piled up :

No sleeping here.

When I asked about the boulders I was told that they were there to prevent people from sleeping there. Apparently it’s a common practice. Wow, I have to say I was shocked. As I said before, homelessness is an inconvenient fact in all major cities and the homeless are always discouraged from staying in wealthy areas. I just hope that the same people who gave the order to pile up rocks under bridges also started some initiatives to provide a decent alternative, perhaps even something with a roof and a bed?

At many traffic lights in Rio you will see groups of street kids doing amazing juggling tricks to earn some change from the motorists.