If you’re passing a newsstand in the next few days, look for the long-awaited Brazil issue of Juxtapoz. Guest curated by William Baglione—whose artists we always breathlessly talk about here—the hot special edition stars a slew of familiar names: Bruno 9li, Tinho, Calma, Choque Cultural, Os Gemeos and others. Baglione said he chose the artists based on a variety of styles, potential and experience. The cover artist is Herbert Baglione, William’s bro who counts Juxtapoz editor M. Revelli as a fan. The story goes that the issue originally was meant to be a spotlight on South American artists, but when they saw that most of the artists were Brazilian, Juxtapoz changed strategy and dedicated an entire issue to the well-deserving cast of lucky artists. Jump on this quick.

Although her ink drawings always carry a somber vibe about them, Thais Beltrame’s (the only girl holding it down in the Sao Paulo artist collective Famiglia Baglione) U.S. solo debut will be anything but low key. Her new black-and-white works will be joined by watercolors for her When All the Stars Are Gone exhibit kicking off at Carmichael Gallery this Thursday. The title of the show refers to the literal skies, where she looks to for inspiration, and the pieces feature children walking down the path of awareness, turning into new people as they become wiser. I’m totally into the pensive state her work always leaves me in. The show runs till May 28, and in the back gallery will also be Get Rich Quick, a collection from the gallery’s collectors that includes work by Barry McGee, David Choe, Banksy and Kaws.

Nike Brazil’s newest campaign idea, entitled “V Project,” tasked nine people from the worlds of fashion, skate and art to create their vision of victory. One of them, artist and skate photographer Flavio Samelo (who’s part of the ever-productive Baglione collective), tapped into the period when he was in a coma for a year and had to learn to walk again after coming out of it. It was an experience that he made tangible through a mix of concrete and photographs (video here). Over the next few weeks, the works will circulate through the windows of various stores that carry Nike in Sao Paulo, including Surface to Air and Maze Skate Shop (which recently underwent a nice renovation that incorporates rails and concrete just like you find at the skate park), and will be put on the website of a new Nike-sponsored magazine called Project Gudi.

Note to our London readers who are seeing the rise of Brazilian art on display at a gallery near them: Sao Paulo contemporary artist and street art hero Herbert Baglione will be presenting a fresh series of provocative and dark works entitled Two Broken Knees at Lazarides gallery’s Greek Street location beginning Nov. 21. Haunting figures in a scene of color take on urban influences, which Baglione carries out with destructed typography treatments and sharp shapes. These works focus on his view of death, individualism and chaos — subjects undoubtedly close to all of us and always inspiring ones. What a way to close out the world’s tumultuous year. The exhibit runs till Dec. 20.

The Santander Cultural center in Porto Alegre, a major city in the south of Brazil, is the site of an exciting, monster-sized street art exhibit called Transfer. Not only does it draw the biggest names from the discipline (Ornesto, Herbert Baglione, Carlos Dias) in the country but also matches them with their international peers like Mike Mills, Cheryl Dunn and KAWS. A group of star curators including Sesper and Christian Strike has brought over the amazing Beautiful Losers tour as one segment of the show, bringing the overall participant total to 300 works by 100 artists. The other three parts of Transfer discuss street art: how it’s documented by photographs and film, accessories to the scene, such as skate and publications, and work that has transcended the street and entered more defined art and cultural spaces. The show runs until Sept. 28, but since you won’t be there to check it out in person, see skate photographer Flavio Samelo’s shots from the show here.

An interview with artist/local hero Herbert Baglione and a hardcore-turned-samba musician Kiki Dinucci are just two of the stories in the packed new issue of the Sao Paulo free bimonthly magazine Mais Soma from JoshSpear friends Kultur Studio. With a distribution of 10,000 in a city of 16 million people, you can guess copies disappear fast. The glossy is a superbly done publication putting alternative and lesser-profiled subjects in front of the public eye. Plus, they have the occasional international star, like Shepard Fairey, who did a substantial Q&A in the last issue. We know many of you (ok, so plenty of you) don’t live in Sao Paulo, but you can still watch special videos on their site via Somacast, and download previous issues as PDFs for digital perusal.

We’re psyched to be the very first to show you these special-edition glass jugs by highly lauded Sao Paulo street artist and Baglione Criacoes team member Tinho. He’s graced a limited number of them with some pretty ballsy social and political statements. On one side of them, Tinho’s drawn a picture of a disenchanted-looking girl, but with upcoming change reflected through blowing hair as to say that Brazilians have the unique power to continually keep their hopes up despite what it may appear on the outside. Another picture showing a family waiting atop their house should be read as Brazilians counting down days on end for the government to enact change instead of being the catalyst of change themselves.

Criticism can come in all forms, and at the very least, these glass jugs will break the ice at a party and spark a discussion about Brazil and its residents as Tinho intends. They’ll be hitting Zona D and Benedixt soon in Sao Paulo, but no work on the exact date yet.

Managing talent is big business that keeps getting more specialized the more creative people get. Some say it’s not possible to push your name to the top level without an agency to back you up, and the more niche, the better. Here in Brazil, where graffiti artists know their worldwide value’s gaining as quickly as the dollar is falling, applying this type of management philosophy to this new elite is a darn good idea. William Baglione’s done it with his Baglione Criacoes, a pure testament to his business skill. Baglione’s “Famiglia” has some of the most sought-after names in Brazilian street art, like Sesper, Pato, Flip, Flavio Samelo, Thais Beltrame, Tinho and his brother (Upper Playground collaborator and internationally famed artist) Herbert Baglione. Much like a fan club in which he’s the president, William’s blog keeps tabs on the constant exhibits and work updates from his clients. But his work is altogether different in that he really goes the length to support the artists. For example, Baglione TV is a series of short behind-the-scene documentaries he organized to profile each artist and his/her creative process. William’s also curated art shows, so he knows his industry from the inside out. Overall, this is the type of dedication you can only get from an artist to his work, but William is fully aware of the dividing line so that he can help make his clients money and fame. Really, we all need a William Baglione in our lives.