Os Gêmeos

The Brazilian street art, characterized by strong originality, has developed due to economic, political, and social factors and is considered the art of the people. Among the prominent representatives of this artistic practice are Os Gemeos, the twins Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo, born in 1974 in São Paulo, Brazil, and active since 1987. Their works can be seen on the streets of Cambuci, a small town in São Paulo, as well as on the walls of cities around the world. In their works, which are marked by strong lyricism and intense chromatic accents, they often use a yellow color palette, because, as Gustavo Pandolfo states, "it is the color that predominates in our dreams at night." The twins reaffirm their desire to go beyond tradition, creating their own repertoire of images that conveys the vitality of the Brazilian people: “We sought to distance ourselves from tradition, creating graffiti different from European and American street art. We aimed to represent the roots of Brazilian culture, not only its folkloric and popular aspects, but something we have always believed in: the other world that has emerged from within us.”

The world that emerges from the artistic duo is vividly present in the work belonging to the Iannaccone collection, which depicts the portrait of a Brazilian family as imagined by the artists. This portrayal is thoroughly narrated in the lengthy subtitle of Untitled: O Pai, O Mãe, o filho, a empregada, a filha de empregada, o cachorro, a ovelhinha, o gato, o passarinho. Happy and smiling together, despite the challenges of everyday life, they face these with the music of the small record player held by the father, the games with the slingshot hanging from one of the children’s feet, and the tenderness of the animals, who are also part of the family unit. In short, the street art of the twins Otavio and Gustavo is far from polemical. In 2014, they covered a Boeing 737 used by the Brazilian national football team with 12,000 spray cans. The plane depicts Brazilian fans with their distinctive physical traits.