Do Az: Mestre

In the sprawling, chromatic chaos of São Paulo’s urban landscape, where pixação (graffiti tagging) screams from every vertical surface and commissioned murals battle for attention with commercial billboards, one name is spoken with a mixture of reverence, fear, and curiosity: Mestre do AZ (The Master of AZ).

The most romantic theory, however, is that "AZ" is a contraction of "Aço" (Steel). Witnesses claim that his tags, etched onto the rusted metal gates of abandoned factories and the brushed aluminum of subway cars, appear to be carved rather than painted, as if the hand that held the can possessed the strength of a locksmith. mestre do az

Enraged by the rigidity of commercial design, he took to the streets. But unlike the pichadores who wrote their crew names (like "Os Trutinhas" or "Vermes") to mark territory, Mestre do AZ only wrote the alphabet. He believed that by deconstructing the letters A through Z, he was deconstructing the language of oppression. In the sprawling, chromatic chaos of São Paulo’s