A couple of weeks ago I was getting off the Metro station in Copacabana. I was in a big hurry because I was running late, but just happened to look up for a moment and saw something pretty amazing.
This is the work of Portuguese artist Alexadre Farto, AKA Vhils. Apparently his process involves first painting an image onto a wall, then using drills, chisels and other tools to chip away at the painting to leave the final image.
Here’s a close-up:
I’ve been spending a lot of time in Copacabana recently. A few months back they closed the Metro station in Ipanema, so nowadays the bus drops me on the beach in Copacabana each night and I wander the streets looking for either Siqueira Campos or Cardeal Arcoverde stations to complete my journey home. At first it was a real pain – I got lost quite a bit – but after a while I found that I was getting to know my around the neighbourhood.
As I walked the streets of Copa, I noticed one set of letters appearing over and over: PXE. I’ve seen these letter on walls, shop fronts and especially on those nondescript, grey boxes that contain, erm, telephone wiring? Electricity stuff? Clearly I have no idea what these boxes are for, but I do know that they look better when they’ve received the PXE treatment!
PXE, or Marcio PXE to his friends, has a pretty cool blog. I have noticed several themes running through his work and these themes have meant I’ve had to learn some new vocabulary!
It’s been a while since our last music post, so I thought that today we could start with something topical from the legendary Caetano Veloso (bonus points if you can work out why it’s topical).
Caetano is a huge name in Brazilian music and deserves a post (at least one!) all to himself.
My first Portuguese teacher played that song to me during one of my first lessons. It’s a nice song for someone learning Portuguese as Caetano sings very clearly and the lyrics include some great words such as the rather magnificent sounding deslumbrante (gorgeous/glamorous/stunning).
So, apart from it just being a great song, did any of you work out why I picked that particular track? It’s because in exactly a week it will be St George’s Day, or as they say here in Brazil, Dia de São Jorge.
Back in England there has been a campaign simmering away for years in the (mostly right wing) press to make the day of St George (England’s patron saint) a public holiday. Well, what The Daily Mail, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and a host of far right organisations haven’t been able to achieve in England, has been a reality here in Rio for years – 23rd April is a public holiday.
“Take that ya dragon!”. George absolutely hated dragons and did his bit to ensure that dragon populations were kept under control in 3rd century Turkey.
It’s not just the English and Cariocas who have love for St George. He is also the patron saint of Georgia, Portugal, Malta, Beirut, Preston, the Boy Scouts of America and people suffering from skin diseases and syphilis!
Last week we had a couple of guests from Colombia staying with us. One of these guests was a graffiti artist from Bogotá who goes by the name of Dast. Those of you who have picked up on my street art obsession will not be surprised to hear that I was rather excited about the idea of having a real-life grafiteiro to stay. Not just that, but Dast just so happens to do some very cool, geometrically themed graffiti – check it out.
A few hours after Dast and his friend left, Mrs Eat Rio and I decided to go out for a stroll. We hadn’t got more than a few minutes from our house when we turned a corner and saw this:
My very own piece of Eat Rio Graffiti! I had no idea about this until I turned a corner and saw it! A very nice surprise!
Wow! Dast had very kindly added an Eat Rio dedication to his fine work. Of course art appreciation is a subjective matter, but in my opinion at least, Dast also did everyone a favour as this gate had previously been covered in some really annoying scrawlings. I accept the fact that I could be a little biased on this matter…
This kind of art is ephemeral and I have no idea whether this will last a week, a month or a year, but I must confess that seeing it gave me a little glow of pride. Many thanks to Dast – come again soon!
I am starting to get the impression that Easter is fast approaching. Do you know how I know? Well there have been some strange things going on around Rio.
First of all, in the run-up to Easter it seems that Brazilian children are being encouraged to dress up in seriously scary costumes – this must be something like Halloween in other countries. Brace yourself for something seriously spine-chilling:
Like characters from a horror film. Truly terrifying…
Moving swiftly on, Easter brings other strange phenomena to Brazil.
