Street art in Rio de Janeiro

There was one thing I was really looking forward to in Rio de Janeiro and that was the street art. Every time a new list of best street art places comes up this Brazilian city makes it to the top. According to Design Week “Brazilian graffiti art is considered among the most significant standards of a global urban art movement and its diversity defies the increasing homogeneity of world graffiti.” After such an introduction I had my expectations pretty high and I wasn’t disappointed, the street art scene in Rio de Janeiro was really amazing!

In 2009 the Brazilian government passed the law that made the street art legal if the owners of the properties that artists work on agree on using their space. Rio in particular is working very hard to produce really decent, meaningful street art as the influence to the local community. Numerous street art festivals are organized in the city to show the importance of real work of art and not just random tagging that do nothing more than defacing the place. Brazilian artists became so well recognizable all over the world that many places (like Łódź, the street art capital of Poland) invite them so they can leave their amazing work not only in their hometown. On the other hand, artists from outside of Brazil desire to creating something in Rio de Janeiro, it’s considered prestigious!

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I was hoping to go for a tour (just like in Buenos Aires) to learn more about the Rio’s street art scene but sadly it wasn’t running in the days when I was in the city. Still it was so much fun to look for the street art on my own! The majority of amazing pieces I’ve found were in bohemian areas of the city – Santa Teresa and Lapa but you can find street art just about everywhere in Rio de Janeiro! It occupies walls of upper class neighbourhoods as well as favelas, it’s in commercial property as well as on private houses. Wherever you look you might see an exceptional piece of art. Rio de Janeiro is bursting with creativity and admiring it was definitely one of the highlights of my visit in this incredible city!

Here are some of my best finds, hope you like them as much as I do!

If you think of visiting Brazil or just want to read more about the country take a look what else I wrote about it:

• So Rio de Janeiro didn’t blow me away…
• Bohemian Rio de Janeiro – Santa Teresa
• Favelas in Rio – an inseparable part of the city’s scenery
• and more!

If you’re looking for articles about any place in particular this map with posts might be useful for you. Or just take a look at the “destinations” page.