The contemporary art space Choque Cultural provides a legitimate, visible link to São Paulo’s underground/youth culture: since its launch in 2004, the gallery has welcomed practinoners of such diverse arts as graffiti, tattooing and graphic design. Its three floors often display an odd mixture of the mundane, the imaginative and macabre: work is scribbled everywhere, on walls, clothes or paper; visitors are greeted by flying heads and mythical monsters.

Choque Cultural sells vodoo dolls, handmade posters, fanzines, toys, stickers and buttons, as well as work that otherwise only appears on concrete—graffiti by Fefe, Titi Freak, Atsuo, Bruno 9li and other members of Brazil’s blossoming street art scene. The gallery’s exhibitions change constantly and many are actually created on site by the artists: the respect Choque Cultural pays to even the rawest forms of urban creativity is the secret to its success.

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