I kind of love pichação style. It looked really ugly to me at first, but then grew on me as I saw more of it. It feels alien and cryptic and uncomfortable to me as a Westerner. I understand being sick of it if you live there, but as a tourist, it felt special. Local graffiti styles have become so homogenized in the U.S. At one point, script styles were much more local. NY and Philly especially. Eventually, everyone sort of saw and bit off everyone else and it was no longer possibly to tell where a writer was from from their work. São Paulo has a definitely style. Not just the tags, but Batman Alley and the huge public murals. It was the best city I have ever been to for street art.
Graffiti can be beautiful, but it's a problem if it's on buildings that don't want it.
Where I live, stores are constantly fighting a battle against graffiti. They'll paint their walls, and people will graffiti them with ugly tags. People have graffitied over murals, which is just insane. One building had a huge piece of plywood on the wall as a spot where people could make street art. That worked for a few months until someone tagged the whole rest of the building too.
It's not like they're "fighting the man" or anything. These are all locally owned small businesses who are just trying to keep doing their thing.
