A Brief Look: Sao Paulo’s Beco de Batman

 

 

At some point in the 1980s someone went down an empty alley in Sao Paulo’s Villa Madelena neighborhood and spraypainted the image of the DC Comics superhero Batman on a concrete wall. The alley became known as Beco de Batman (Batman Alley) and from that point on the two blocks of alleyway became an open air gallery of ever-changing street art.

Villa Madalena is an area of apartment buildings and little shops. The streets are cramped and shattered. The brick canvas that builds up Beco de Batman is a showcase of what can be accomplished with a can of spraypaint. From one day to the next the alley will change. A design painted over, gone forever. This is its nature. Each visit leaves the audience at the point of catching up to the artists, as the final steam of aerosol lifts, there it is — something new.