Stephan Doitschinoff – between the streets and galleries of São Paulo

Stephan Doitschinoff began his journey as an anonymous street artist under the pseudonym Calma, and today, the Association of Art Critics in São Paulo names him as “the most promising Brazilian artist”. His work explores the relationship between belief systems, cultural narratives, and symbols, and his works are part of prestigious institutions such as the Fondation Cartier in Paris, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego and the Museum of Modern Art in São Paulo.

Raised as the son of a parish priest and witnessing the Brazilian military dictatorship, as a child Doitschinoff often listened to his grandfather's stories about Bulgaria, while in Brazil he was surrounded by a multitude of different cultural traditions. In his neighborhood, there was an Umbanda temple (an Afro-Brazilian religious community) as well as a spiritist center. All of this turned him into a nomad, traveling across the country in search of preserved indigenous cultural customs in the small towns and villages of South America and the Amazon.

Today, his work in murals, paintings, installations and performances is a bold and direct critique of contemporary society – from the church, corporations, and the media as tools of control, to empathy towards poverty and opposition to violence. His works intertwine Afro-Brazilian rituals, Baroque elements, pagan symbols, and animism, which he explored in depth during his three-year project in a small Brazilian village in the province of Bahia, documented in the film Temporal (2009). With two monographs published by the prestigious German publishing house Gestalten, and collaborations ranging from illustrating an album for metal legends Sepultura to giving lectures at universities in Prague, Amsterdam, and Kyiv, Doitschinoff has become one of the authentic and engaged voices in contemporary Latin American art.

We speak with Stephan Doitschinoff shortly before his visit to Sofia (July 31 – August 2) for a workshop at The Purgatory. Between September 1 and 7, he will also have his solo exhibition at the Monument gallery.

From the performance "The Cult of the Future"

Your grandparents emigrated from Bulgaria to Brazil just before World War II. Do you think this sense of "transferring" one world into another is encoded in the way you mix symbols from completely different cultures in your practice nowadays?

I grew up in São Paulo during the 1990s, a vast metropolis. As a kid, at sunday lunch with my family, I would listen to my grandfather telling stories about Bulgaria, while outside I was surrounded by many different cultural traditions. In the neighborhood where I lived there was an Umbanda temple, an Afro-Brazilian religious tradition, as well as a Spiritist center.

From an early age, when I began developing my artistic research, I became somewhat nomadic, traveling across Brazil in search of cultural manifestations that were still preserved in smaller towns and rural regions. At that time, I was interested in places where local traditions remained strong despite the growing influence of globalization.

I discovered a country shaped by countless encounters. Along these journeys, I came into contact not only with Afro-Brazilian traditions, but also with the cultures of Indigenous peoples from different regions of South America, including the Amazon.

Many of these journeys were not brief visits. In some places I stayed for a few months or longer, and in others I lived for several years. Over time, many of these traditions became part of my daily life and formed close personal connections rather than distant cultural references.

In a sense, none of these cultures feel foreign to me. They are part of my personal history, the people I have met, and the communities I have spent time with over the years.

Your first experience with art was your grandfather's theatrical sketches from the 1950s and 1960s. When you look at those old drawings today, do you discover any aesthetic thread in them that unconsciously influenced you?

Absolutely. I think growing up looking at those images influenced me mainly in my performance work, especially in the series Cvlto do Fvtvrv (Cult of the Future).

Looking back today, I can see that this series is strongly influenced by theater because it is ultimately a work about belonging. For that reason, I always try to include the audience in the performances. I want people to interact with the work almost like actors in a play, as if I were one actor and the audience another.

In some performances from this series, participants are even required to memorize dialogues and take on specific roles within the action. This is combined with my inclination to create costumes and theatrical elements such as uniforms, cloaks, masks, and medals.

Psilocybe cubensis Glendinning, from the "Numismatic Atlas" series

In Bulgarian folklore, there is a very strong pagan element (Kukeri masks, the struggle between good and evil) that recalls the African and Brazilian rituals featured in your projects. Do you find a parallel between Balkan mysticism and Brazilian syncretism?

I think so. There is a parallel, and it is precisely what interests me most about these two universes: they both reflect something that I believe is urgent for us to recover today – the ability to look at nature as a source of inspiration, knowledge, and wisdom.

Many of these cultural manifestations pay homage to plants, animals, and the forces of the natural world. They carry knowledge from times when we still saw ourselves as part of nature rather than separate from it.

What fascinates me most is that these traditions point toward a possible path for rebuilding that connection. In many ways, they preserve ways of living in greater balance with the natural world and remind us that we belong to it.

This wisdom remains alive among many traditional peoples around the world. In Brazil, for example, many Indigenous communities still preserve this profound knowledge of how to live in harmony with nature.

What are the themes that move you deeply as an artist?

One of the themes that interests me most is the way societies construct systems of value and meaning. In my most recent series, Atlas Numismático (Numismatic Atlas), I use the visual language of coins, medals, emblems, and banknotes to reflect on what a culture chooses to celebrate, preserve, and place at the center of its attention.

I have always been curious about who decides what has value within a society. Why do certain symbols appear on monuments, coins, flags, and institutions, while others remain at the margins?

In Numismatic Atlas, I explore these questions by creating fictional currencies that replace historical figures, symbols of power, or wealth with elements connected to nature, mythology, rituals, and different forms of knowledge. It is a way of imagining alternative possibilities and questioning the values that guide contemporary culture.

More broadly, my work investigates the relationship between belief systems, cultural narratives, and the symbols we use to organize our understanding of the world.

The Virtues of Idolatry, acrylic on canvas

You started as an anonymous artist under the pseudonym Calma. What does life in a metropolis like São Paulo teach you, and how has the city changed artistically over the years?

One of the most important things I learned while painting murals in the early 2000s was the value of engaging not only with museum and gallery audiences, but also with people who do not usually enter those spaces.

Although my performances are now often presented by museums and galleries, I like them to unfold both inside and outside these institutions. Parades and processions, for example, may begin in a museum, move through the streets, and return. In this way, the work reaches people who might never visit a museum while also inviting them to do so.

I am interested in the element of surprise in art: the possibility that someone walking down the street might unexpectedly encounter a performance. Ultimately, I believe public space should belong to people. For this reason, I enjoy expanding cultural programs beyond museum walls, bringing artistic experiences into the urban environment and making them accessible to a broader audience.

From the performance "The Cult of the Future"

When did your first interventions in the urban environment take place, and what was the story, the artistic surrounding around you that led you this way?

My first interventions in public space took place in the 1990s. My artistic environment was closely connected to music. As a teenager, I worked as an assistant to a set designer creating stages for concerts and music festivals, while also producing illustrations and paintings for cassette tapes, CDs, vinyl records, and stage backdrops.

Many of my friends were musicians, while others were painters and visual artists. It was within this environment that I developed as a self-taught artist.

What is interesting is that many of those friendships have lasted for decades. Later, when my work expanded beyond painting into installation, performance, video, and other media, it felt natural to collaborate again with those same people. Many became involved in my projects, contributing soundtracks, live performances, and audiovisual elements.

Looking back, I realize this evolution happened organically. Rather than entering a new world, I was simply bringing into my work collaborators, friends, and references that had already been part of my life for many years.

Capsule

Our issue is dedicated to art in the urban environment. Does it remain the most democratic form of social protest today? How do you personally adapt from the absolute freedom that the streets offer to the confined spaces of galleries like the Cartier Foundation or MASP?

I do not believe urban art is, by itself, either a democratic or particularly effective form of social protest. Over the past decades, the most effective forms of social change have often come from people organizing collectively, taking to the streets, and demanding concrete political transformations. When the goal is to change laws, challenge unjust governments, or influence public policy, collective action tends to have a more direct impact than artistic expression alone.

That said, I believe art operates in a different territory. Its strength lies less in changing laws and more in creating spaces for reflection, sensitivity, and imagination. In our daily lives, much of our subjective experience is overshadowed by routine, urgency, and practical concerns. Encounters with art can create moments in which people reconnect with emotions, intuitions, and questions that often remain unattended. In that sense, art can help expand awareness, and awareness is often a precursor to change.

As for the relationship between the street and the museum, I have never felt that one offers more freedom than the other. Throughout my career, I have been fortunate to work with institutions and curators who gave me complete creative freedom. The idea that the street is inherently free while museums are inherently restrictive has never reflected my experience.

What changes is not the degree of freedom, but the conditions of production. Institutions can provide resources, time, research opportunities, technical support, and the financial stability necessary for an artist to develop more ambitious and complex projects. Artists do not live on inspiration alone.

For me, freedom is not determined by where the work is shown. It is something that emerges from the artist’s willingness to create with honesty, enthusiasm, and the full extent of their imagination. The essential challenge remains the same: to create meaningful experiences that allow people to reconnect with themselves and with the world around them.

Spectrum

In Brazil, street art has a unique status – from world-renowned murals to the purely local phenomenon of pichação. Should the city try to frame and “domesticate” art in order to preserve it, or is its power precisely in its ephemerality?

I think this dilemma of what a society chooses to preserve is essential. And it is a question that goes far beyond art. Whether an image appears on a wall, a canvas, a coin, inside a museum, or disappears the next day is, to me, a secondary matter. What matters most is what it contains.

A performance may last only a few minutes and remain alive in someone’s memory for decades. A bronze monument may survive for centuries and yet become completely invisible. We are currently witnessing a global movement in which monuments once considered permanent are being questioned, removed, or reinterpreted. Figures that at one moment seemed to embody the values of a society may, a few generations later, become irrelevant or even undesirable. This reminds us that permanence and ephemerality are not opposites.

Perhaps the most interesting question is not whether cities should preserve certain images, but which images and values a society chooses to preserve – and why.

Stephan Doitschinoff will be visiting Sofia from July 31 to August 2 for a workshop at The Purgatory (7 Industrialna St.). Between September 1 and 7, he will also hold a solo exhibition at the Monument gallery on 3 Saborna St. You can find more about Stephan Doitschinoff's projects at www.doitschinoff.com.