#29

Riot de Janeiro: s/a of the new age

Uniting illustrators, artists, tattoo artists, musicians and graffiti artists, an unusual "creation agency", lives art, in search of new concepts and ideals. 

The margin of society, a sort of fictional territory, and at the same time, always heavily present, has always introduce a creative originality and a unique capacity of launching new trends. But, not long ago, that  famous spotlight, bad seen through the more squared eyes, was restricted to the people who lived up to, that parallel culture and environment,  victims of stereotypes (of course). Along with the changes of the new age, the tables have turned, and the society, no longer ignores that market, actually they can now value the art absorbed and cultivated in the lines of the cities, being it coming directly from the streets or not. Here, the concept of Riot de Janeiro, an innovative "creative agency", can exemplify a little better how the new artists can work together towards the same objective: the collective as a whole, the search for the appreciation of art and, as consequence, the recognition of new artists.

“The idea came up in the end of 2010, when my brother (Hugo Inglez) had the idea of doing a blog with a focus on art, something like Ctrl+Alt+Rio. Right after, he realized that we had several close friends who were amazing artists, but none of them received credits or the recognition they deserved for the level of work they had been doing. Mostly due to all trade of influences there is, in the artistic market, especially in Rio de Janeiro. Then, he realized that the artistic content that he needed for the blog, could actually be produced by us", describes Rique Inglez, twin brother of Hugo, and friends with Breno Moreira, three of the creators of the project. Although the seed was planted back then, the creation of the agency started three months ago, and by the number of members, already with the intention of being something big, like a riot. In total, the team Riot includes 14 friends, being three collaborators and 11 artists, among them: graffiti artists, Djs, musicians, designers, visual artists, illustrators, photographers and even tattoo artists, a curious and true mix. 

Gathering different proposals, like each one of the members was the link to a artistic stream of resistance, Riot de Janeiro lives out of the experience of each one. "We all come from different areas and some don't even have a degree. The truth is, we don't care about education. Even inside the artistic issue, it would be very difficult to define each member, because we all have different styles and they can work on several medias and techniques. The unique point in common is that we all have a very well defined style and unique.   I think that's exactly the differential of RiotJ. What we do, only we do. Our focus are ideas and exactly because of that, we won't and we don't want to have a certain area of expertise. Any idea is valid and can be produced. This way, we can work with every product, and at the same time, transform everything in work", adds.

“Angry” with the lack of appreciation of art, including the financial point of view, Rio(t) appears with its own way of circumvent this art marginality. This way, the union of this agency of creation became a true cause, very fair by the way. "I can proudly say that until the creation of RiotJ, we were basically ignored. At  every moment, another amazing artist with a tremendous potential gives up his career, basically because  he can't afford to sustain himself, while others gain worldwide fame with a bunch of crap. Our fight is the same of every young artist: make a living out of art. There is an absurd idea in Brasil that art is not a job. What sometimes is valued outside , here is almost a stigma. We seek the true appreciation of the brazilian culture, for ourselves, and for those yet to come", strikes Rique, who also signs another curious project: Artspam, a name suggested by the twin Hugo. .

Betting on the artistic exchange, Rique elaborated ten cardboards and also separated ten addresses completely distinct and random, outside Brasil. The idea was to introduce or to offer someone  its own art, without knowing what would be done with the work and not knowing the chosen one. Like that, almost parallel with the agency, Artspam was born, a spam, that contrarily to the usual ones, everyone would like to receive. "My dream is that this would spread as a new way of artistic disclosure. Can you  imagine artists out there sending their works somewhere in the world? I would love to receive one and I would do anything to share this ideal. What is funny is that people are surprise with someone having such an altruistic attitude, which shows it's not very common nowadays. The world needs good actions and a bit of spontainety" shares Rique, that, from the ten works already sent, received only one answer, which already made  entire project worth. "I received an answer from a guy in London. Funny it was the last sent. I was so happy when I saw the email, I had already lost hope of answers in that lot of cardboards. He wrote everything in a portuguese out from google translator, but the email was awesome , he said he love the drawing". 

As part of the proposal of the project, Rique answered the email where he explained a little better the proposal of the Artspam and told the story about that specific cardboard, which had a drawing with very thin lines, made out with a medicine propaganda ruler. (Picture below). "That made the drawing even  awesome, because the lines are not totally parallel which gives this weird sense of movement. To improvise is my specialty... in the beginning, I had to work with very low resources and that helped me to find my style, which is very simple and minimalist" explains Rique, who ends with: "We want to conquer the world, departing from the wondrous city and show that we can have a worldwide production, even with all the difficulties. Rio(t) de Janeiro needs to be a reference in art and culture, and not only a glimpse of what's happening out there, and I cannot think of a better time for that to happen".

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Email: contato@riotdejaneiro.com

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