Cripta
Born in 1984, in São Paulo. Lives and works in São Paulo.
Djan Ivson da Silva, aka Cripta, is one of the foremost representatives of pixação, a Brazilian term referring to a type of graffiti unique to São Paulo. He began his activity as a pixador at the age of 12 and is one of the most recognized pixadores in the city today. Since 2004, he has devoted most of his time to video reportage, filming and documenting pixadores in action. Between 2006 and 2009, he made nine self-produced videos, two of which are entitled 100 comédia and Escrita Urbana. São Paulo street writing represents a very unique and specific form of graffiti in its global proliferation. The formal originality of the lettering and the occupation of visible spacehave made pixação an unprecedented phenomenon. First appearing in the 1960s as a tool for political contestation against the dictatorship of the time, pixação, whose name originally derives from the tar (pixe) that was used instead of paint, today designates the tags that have invaded downtown São Paulo, intended to promote the name of an individual or a group. To this day, no other major world city has been subject to an invasion of graffiti on such a large scale. The pixadores use buildings as billboards, often risking their lives by climbing the façades of high-rises. The pixações (tags) are symbols of the city’s colonization by favelas and are as deeply hated by the local population as graffiti was in 1970s New York. These pixações, often made with black paint because it is less expensive than color, are reminiscent of antique alphabets like Runic, or the Gothic fonts used on heavy metal album covers.
Cripta