Category: The Library

Martinez / Nato
Prestel

The introduction of this book opens by saying that it is “based on a fundamental conviction that graffiti is not an anthropological phenomenon to be dissected, not a social malady to be cured, but a legitimate aesthetic and cultural movement born of a revolutionary spirit and a will to resistence.”

Another point raised in the intelligent but never preachy introduction, which sets it apart from a great dal of other books is that it is important that the true reason that the working class youth began to write isn’t forgotten by the glamourisation of the art on pages of art books. To that end, Graffiti NYC lives up to its word.

As a result of this, the photos found within these covers, beautiful as they undoubtedly are, give a much more raw representation of the art. Some of the environments are dank and grey but this only serves to highlight how walls looked at the time New York became the birthplace of graffiti back in the day.

From walls to fences, tagging to full car pieces, this book goes All City and gives a perfect look at where graffiti was born and leave it in its purest form. With quotes from writers taking over the middle pages, Graffiti NYC is definitely one of the most complete art books going.

Abjekt.

Edited by Briony Quested
Prestel

Being a proud Londoner myself, it doesn’t take much prompting for me to prattle on about how amazing my home city is and how it is better than the likes of New York, Paris, Milan, Stockholm, Rio and Tokyo. But, believe it or not, there are some people out there who don’t know what a treasure trove of fun the English capital is and these are the people that need to pick up Pimp London: The Guide.

Separating the capital into its four geographical areas, the book takes a look at where to go in North, South, East and West for people who like music, bars, clothes shops, art and everything inbetween. The layout is easy to follow and very clear, including interviews throughout with the likes of Klaxons, The Teenagers, Sickboy, Carri and Lightspeed Champion, telling the reader where they like to go in London.

It is impossible not to find something for you in a book like this, with directions, opening times and descriptions of every entry and as such is invaluable to those not too familiar with all the haunts of the city. Even for those of us that do, there are still undiscovered gems to be found amongst the listings here.

Abjekt.

Sacha Jenkins & David Villorente
Prestel

For every piece you see on a wall by a trainline or adorning a billboard or on the side of a tower block overlooking the city’s skyline, there will be hundreds of sketches in an artist’s blackbook.

These now-famed artists honed their techniques and discovered brand new styles in the pages of these books before unleashing them onto the world and in Piecebook, Sacha Jenkins and David Villorente have managed to get these out to the masses at last.

What sets this book apart from the many others on graffiti is that the sketches are reprinted on a blank page, giving them a bold and brash presences, forcing the reader to acknowledge both the stripped down features of the art and the miniscule details involved in the make up of each piece. Whether they are coloured or left as simply an outline, the effect is just the same and will take hours of perusal to soak up everything between the covers.

The artists used in this book range from Peso 131 [1975] and In1 [1974] to Wild Style renowned Lady Pink [1980] and Lee Quinones [1982] to arguably two of the most revered of them all – Dondi and Iz The Wiz. It truly is incredible to see the early works of some of the pioneers of the graffiti phenomenon, being able to look at how these writers sketched during their own golden age and giving in insight into the work that was put into the art that made them known to the outside world.

This is in incredible book that goes where no other has and promises to be both educational and aesthetically pleasing to anyone that picks it up. A must have.

Abjekt.

Independent Music Press

I get much of my inspiration from tattoo flash, so I was stoked to have been handed a copy of Tattoo Soup via IMP. Taking the format of a reference book, this no frills compendium covers a range of tattoos from the ridiculous to the truly unique and beautiful.

Compiled by David Hanley and Martin Roach, the images in this book have been handpicked from around the world and cover a broad range of style and meaning. From the traditional Japanese Yakusa aesthetic, photo realism, comic book characters, to the currently popular Sailor Jerry tats, this book covers it all, pulling together images from around the world.

Whilst a brief introduction explains the motivation behind this archive, it doesn’t attempt to justify or glamorise its contents with extensive text. This is purely eye candy and inspiration for ink lovers everywhere. My favourites include the x-ray swallows and full scale horror back pieces. So if you’re interested in getting marked but need some guidance, this book is for you.

Eyefeelsick.

Stuart Bagshaw & David Oates

Prestel

In the 1980s, when graffiti first hit these shores in a big way, it wasn’t just the sprawling metropolis of the country’s capital that embraced the colourful new culture with open arms. Brighton also caught the bug and since then the South Coast town has been a haven for writers.

The introduction of Brighton Graffiti finishes with the sad statement that Brighton council is continuing its crackdown on the art in the city with the closure of famous local spots like The Moon and Tarner Park, which brought artists to the seashore from all over the world.

However, this book provides a colourful and very powerful example of just how impressive the writing is in Brighton, with page after page of pieces, ordered chronologically, from the early days of Req and Mere in the 80s to Petro in the 90s, right up to modern day colourbursts by Odisy and Mush, showcasing the very best of the art that has hit the nooks and crannies of the town.

If the council down on the South Coast think they are totally closing down illegal art, they really need to think again. The history has been brilliant documented in the book, which is littered with quotes from local artists and proves that graffiti in Brighton is alive and kicked and will continue to give the seaside a splash of vibrancy for a good while yet.

Make sure you pick up this book if you want to view how smaller towns are able to hold their own against cities such as New York, London and Stockholm.

Abjekt.

By Paul Stenning
Published by Independent Music Press

I definitely learnt a lot from this book. As well as containing a wealth of information about the infamous Rage Against The Machine‘s journey thus far, I was bombarded with more history of racial conflict and politics than was ever even alluded to at school. ‘Stage Fighters‘ is a book that chronicles how this seminal band came into being and what has fuelled them over the years to make their music and their various choices ie. the major label signing, the naked on-stage protest against censorship, the unwitting incitement of police rioting outside the Democrat Convention Center… I could go on. It is obvious that there were certain struggles within the band but unfortunately we don’t get a whole lot of inside information apart from what is quoted from an interview between the band and Ben Myers. Considering this is an unauthorized biography, quotation was certainly necessary to keep this book informative and full of fact.

The sections where the book perhaps loses the plot a bit are the more descriptive passages that are clearly personal observations. Whilst sometimes these are insightful and help the reader to connect with what might have been going on with Rage at the times being spoken of, often they are superfluous and I found my eyes skipping forward to read about the next horrendous miscarriage of justice that the band were intent on drawing public attention to. What certainly does come to light is the differences in outlook between each member of the band. Whilst every one of them was politically motivated, it was Zack who really carried most of the political weight and was most pro-active. Morello also felt passionately about certain matters but sometimes they didn’t always agree on what was the most important thing to be focusing their energies on. However, they were united in many things and this book will be a joy for any fan to read and a revelation for those not knowing to much about Rage Against The Machine to begin with.

Winegums

By Brett Callwood
Published by Independent Music Press

Hot on the heels of Brett Callwood’s book about Detroit’s other famous rock sons The MC5 comes the long awaited story of the true originators of punk, The Stooges. While Callwood was out in Detroit researching his MC5 book, he fell in love with the place so much he upped sticks and moved out there for good! And having covered The MC5 it was clear he was going to have to next focus his attention onto what was then termed ‘The MC5’s little brother band’ and get the true story of Iggy Pop and his Stooges down on paper for good.

Although bearing the dreaded ‘Unofficial & Unauthorised‘ tag, ‘A Journey Through…‘ is the bands first in-depth biography and Brett has secured interviews for the book with the whole band and the key players around them. Brett’s passion for the subject shines through the book as he enthusiastically takes as through the band’s chaotic years, the fall out from their original split and the joy they brought to their legions of new and old fans when they finally reformed and hit the festival circuit a few years back.

Bands don’t come much more legendary than The Stooges. They practically single-handily invented the sneering, attitude-drenched lose and raw rock n’roll that spawned punk and if your record collection doesn’t contain their first three albums then more fool you. The less said about ‘The Weirdness‘, their reunion album from 2007, the better. It was a turkey and a massive disappointment. But this book isn’t. Read it and weap that they don’t make them like this anymore.

James Sherry

The Sergo Grigorian Collection
Maria Lafont

Prestel

The Soviet Union has always been home to some of the most striking and socially-important artwork in the world, and being able to look at the Sergo Grigorian Collection that this book holds is certainly a treat. With the introduction taking up only a few pages to set the scene of the various ages of the USSR [as was], the reader is treated to a wonderful selection of posters through the 20th Century, mapping out the changes of the massive country.

From the 1917 Socialist Revolution, which used an alphabet on its posters based on colour and energy, teaching Suprematism inspired by “traditional art as well as introducing modern techniques” to the use of striking images aimed at gaining the support of the population, the majority of which was illiterate, the posters all held the same belief – that the workers were extremely important and must be loyal to the country.

Constructivist posters came about in the 1920s with the introduction of photo montage, using contrasting colours and shapes to provide a comparison of the country’s future and past. And from 1924, following Lenin’s death, the country found itself needing to uphold the man’s ideals despite him not being around to push them forward so images of industrial plants, power stations and people at work became the norm.

By 1945, the iconography had changed to the necessities of war, thanks in no small part to the leadership of Stalin though these faded into the promotion of family values once the war was over, with slogans such as “Make sure that serious boozers can’t get to your construction site” being slapped across the images.

Even if you’re not the keenest historian or Socialist, this book’s use of space, using one page for each poster, gives you an incredible array of art and colour. This is definitely a book to pick up.

Abjekt

Francesca Gavin
Laurence King Publishing

Everyone has seen graffiti, from the tag on the street sign down your road to the pieces on high-rise buildings you’ve looked out on whilst getting the train into the city. But this book takes it that one step further, delving into the world of those artists who wanted to move away from the 2-D world of graffiti and take a step into new materials. This book showcases the brilliant artists who have produced some of the most original and eye-catching art around.

Cut Up are a fine example of using what’s around you to make art. The collective cut up [unsurprisingly] posters from billboards and proceed to re-arrange them into their own pictures. This might not sound like it’s likely to be that exciting, but when you see the results, with the angry youth being the prime example, you’ll have the breath taken away from you.

Eine is perhaps the most well known artist in the book, an artist known to everyone in London for his colourful giant letters which adorn shutters of shops all over the city. The giant letters are said to have turned the city into “one big sentence” with the artist saying:

“I’ve always vandalized things, I never thought it was a particularly bad thing to do.”

The Graffiti Research Lab, which has been labelled as “geek graffiti” takes a medium we know well, tagging, and adds that little bit something extra which is guaranteed to make it stand out. They use LEDS, balloon bombing and, perhaps the most well known of all their work, laser projectors. With these projectors they are able to write their groggy tag on many famous landmarks, including the Arc De Triomphe.

Three other fine examples used in this book are Invader, who puts his mosaic characters all over the world; Mark Jenkins whose incredible Embed collection makes people believe the art is actually a real person with their head embedded into a wall and Slinkachu, famous for putting his tiny people in huge settings.

The examples picked out above are just a fraction of the brilliant work in this book, with beautiful colour photos which give you an idea of the detail in the work and the environment they find themselves in. Street Art is often said to not have any boundaries and if ever there was a book to showcase this, it’s Street Renegades.

Abjekt

Jon Naar
Prestel

For all the books on Graffiti that are in bookshops around the world, The Birth Of Graffiti stands amongst a very small band of publications that really take you back to the very roots of the art form. If you’re used to seeing stunning double-page spreads of pieces, gleaming in perfect colour and supreme detail, then you’re in for a shock with this book.

Jon Naar is a photographer that has lived in New York, the birthplace of Graffiti, for 50 years and as such he has been able to document the movement and culture from its conception. The short introductions by Sacha Jenkins and Naar himself are the only text in the book and give a wonderful description of the city and reasoning behind the start of writing, with Naar explaining that his two favourite photos in the book are of the Star III and Redbird’s Stay High tags on the trains that “rumble ominously across the landscape of tenement buildings above the crowded streets”.

The book itself is a collection of tags that swamped New York in the early 70s, not having evolved into the murals and pieces that are fill the pages of many books on the shelves today. Indeed, this book features only tags and because of that makes it a must-buy. Seeing the simple and yet so powerful signatures on subway windows, high-rise buildings, parked vans and more, showcasing how these young artists got their name known, often with their zip code tacked onto their alias, is a real treat and the importance of Naar’s work cannot be underestimated.

In his introduction Naar unhappily points out that “virtually all traces of this remarkable visual effusion have vanished” so make sure you pick this book up and take in the true history of the most incredible and expansive art culture in the world.

Abjekt.