display a high level of artistic control. Building materials,
topography, and structural forms are clearly specified and arrayed in rhythmic compositions. The kaleidoscopic colors and textures are
just bright enough to signal that the viewer is in a hyperrealistic environment, and to call attention to the consumer-waste origin of the
building materials. Human inhabitants are absent (though human and Disney characters are sometimes included in order to make a
visual pun on “squatting.”)
I wanted to focus on Gillette’s work here because it is a good reference point for discussing representations of urban informality and
aestheticization of poverty, topics we frequently address here in Favelissues. As Gillette expressed to me, the visual and aesthetic are
the primary content of his work, and his approach is basically objective. In that sense his images are the ultimate aestheticization of
slums, as he is occupied with problems central to art and philosophy, not policy.