maismenos - Porto #2

This is a stencil used on the streets by Miguel Januário, turned into a piece.
A painted cardboard piece with spray, which after being used on the streets was painted black and blue to create this unique artwork. It has some marks, tape, and scratches from use (see photos).

It is part of a quote by Almeida Garrett and was created to criticize the censorship policy in the city of Porto shortly before the pandemic. It is part of a set of four stencils, all made with phrases related to the city, where the 'bad' parts were cut out with blue spray (reminiscent of the blue pencil used during the dictatorship to censor what was not accepted by the regime).

It is a small piece of Portuguese street art history and a unique relic.


Miguel Januário is a Portuguese artist born in 1981. He holds a degree in Communication Design and is currently pursuing a PhD in Design at FBAUP. He was a collaborator at the cultural intervention space Maus Hábitos and served as the artistic director of Ivity Brand Corp. Currently, he is the Head of Art for Sustainability at CEiiA. He is a member of the PCP. He is the author of ‘±MaisMenos±’, an intervention project that has become a national and international reference in urban art. He is represented by the Underdogs gallery in Lisbon. Additionally, he is the creator of KissMyWalls, a project with a strong urban component related to graffiti, advertising, writing, and intervention, which includes several artistic heteronyms – Caos, Mr. identidade visual e estética. He has exhibited and/or collaborated with internationally renowned artists such as Vhils, Shepard Fairey (Obey), Futura, Felipe Pantone, Barry McGee, Swoon, AddFuel, Wasted Rita, Icy and Sot, Bordalo II, Mosaik, Ram, Gonçalo Mar, Nomen, among many others.
He has produced innovative and thought-provoking works, both indoors and outdoors, across a variety of media—from video to sculptural installations, from painting to performance. Beyond numerous illegal public art interventions in various countries, the project has also been showcased in solo and group exhibitions in various institutional contexts, notably at the Vera Cortês Gallery (Lisbon, 2010), MACE – Museum of Contemporary Art of Elvas (Elvas, 2011, 2014), Underdogs Gallery (Lisbon, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2021), Caixa Cultural (Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Brasília, 2014), Côa Museum (Vila Nova de Foz Côa, 2015), Graça Morais Contemporary Art Center (Bragança, 2015), MUDE–Museum of Design and Fashion (Lisbon, 2016), José Malhoa Museum (Caldas da Rainha, 2016), MACRO–Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (Rome, 2016), Wunderkammern Gallery (Rome, 2017), Celaya Brothers Gallery (Mexico City, 2018), Arco Lisbon (Lisbon, 2018), WTF Gallery (Bangkok, 2018), Interferências MAAT (Lisbon, 2022), and major art festivals and events such as Walk&Talk Festival (São Miguel, Azores, 2011), Guimarães European Capital of Culture (Guimarães, 2012), La Tour Paris 13 (Paris, 2013), Wool Festival (2014), Esporo (Proença-a-Nova, 2022), Nuart Festival (Stavanger, 2014, 2017), TrashPlant Festival (Tenerife, 2018), Roskilde Festival (Roskilde, 2018), Forgotten Project (Rome, 2016), Iminente Festival (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022), Emergency Iminente Festival (2020), Iminente Festival Rio de Janeiro (2019), Iminente Festival London (2017), Iminente Festival Marseille (2022), Alter Ego Macau (2018), Women Saramaguianas with the Portuguese Screen Printing Center and José Saramago Foundation (2022), Esporo (2022), NEBFest Brussels (2022), Cáceres Abierto (2023). ±MoreLess± was also the subject of two TED talks, at TEDxLuanda (Luanda, 2014) and TEDxPorto (Porto, 2015), along with other public and academic lectures.