We've ranked the best graffiti books using expert recommendations, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. At Shortform, we know books. Our book guides are the best in the world. Learn why.
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1
Subway Art
Henry Chalfant and Martha Cooper
5.0
In 1984 the groundbreaking Subway Art brought graffiti to the world, presenting stunning photographic documentation of the burgeoning movement in New York. Thirty years later, this bible of street art has been updated with over seventy photographs not included in the original edition and new insights on an incredibly rich period for urban art and its legacy.
In new introductions, authors Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant recall how they gained entry into the New York City graffiti community in the 1970s and 1980s. New afterwords continue the story, tracing the decline of the subway and graffiti scene in the late 1980s to its unexpected rebirth as a global art movement. The authors reveal how the lives of the original subway artists have unfolded and mourn the loss of several to the darker forces of the street.
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2
Wall and Piece
Banksy
5.0
Banksy, Britain's now-legendary "guerilla" street artist, has painted the walls, streets, and bridges of towns and cities throughout the world. Not only did he smuggle his pieces into four of New York City's major art museums, he's also "hung" his work at London's Tate Gallery and adorned Israel's West Bank barrier with satirical images. Banksy's identity remains unknown, but his work is unmistakable with prints selling for as much as $45,000.
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Graffiti Alphabets: Street Fonts from Around the World
Claudia Walde
4.8
Classic graffiti lettering and experimental typographical forms lie at the heart of street culture and have long inspired designers in many different fields. But graffiti
artists, who tend to paint the same letters of their tag again and again, rarely design complete alphabets.
Claudia Walde spent over two years collecting alphabets by 154 artists from thirty countries to show the many different styles and approaches to lettering within the graffiti and street art cultures. All of the artists have roots in graffiti. Some are world renowned such as 123 Klan (Canada), Faith47 (South Africa), and Hera (Germany); others are lesser known or only now starting to emerge.
Each artist received the same instructions: design all twenty- six letters of the Latin alphabet within the limits of a single page of the book. How they approached this task and selected the media with which to express their ideas was entirely up to them, and the results encompass not just street art but sketches, sculpture, digital art, and photography.
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Graffiti School: A Student Guide and Teacher Manual
Christoph Ganter
4.7
Although the public perception of graffiti has changed radically over the last fifty years, few would have predicted that it would become the subject of this major new textbook.
Christoph Ganter covers the history of informal mark-making in the public realm, from the first unauthorized characters inscribed on the ancient walls of Egypt and Pompeii to nineteenth-century Vienna, where Joseph Kyselak established himself as the father of graffiti; from New York’s “Taki 183,” the first modern graffiti writer, to more recent developments brought about by the Hip Hop revolution. The effects of the 1980s films Beat Street, Wild Style, and StyleWars are examined, as is the influence graffiti experts on today's subculture through books, magazines, and the Internet.
The practical elements of graffiti are considered in later chapters, which combine tips on handling a spray can, creating a unique tag, and getting work up safely and legally with step-by-step diagrams that show how to achieve effects such as bubblestyle, blockbusters, oneliners, and wildstyle. A teacher’s manual features sample plans for a single lesson as well as guidance on structuring a longer course.
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Graffiti World Updated Edition: Street Art from Five Continents
Nicholas Ganz
4.6
Graffiti World, now updated, is the most comprehensive and bestselling survey of graffiti art ever published. The original collection of more than 2,000 illustrations by over 150 artists around the world is joined by a new section devoted to work created in the five years since the book's first edition.
Graffiti has long been a ubiquitous aspect of the urban landscape, since anonymous, largely unsung spray-can art first hit city walls in New York and Philadelphia in the late 1960s. As hip-hop culture spread from America, graffiti became a worldwide phenomenon, emerging in the 1980s as the symbolic artistic language of young people everywhere.
Today's graffiti artists incorporate a variety of mediums, including stickers, stencils, oils, acrylics, and oil-based chalk, as well as an ever-expanding range of social commentary. This evolution in style and subject matter has guaranteed graffiti's long-lasting influence on art, graphic design, and style around the world.
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Graffiti Moon
CROWLEY CATH
4.5
Lucy is in love with Shadow, a mysterious graffiti artist.
Ed thought he was in love with Lucy, until she broke his nose.
Dylan loves Daisy, but throwing eggs at her probably wasn't the best way to show it.
Jazz and Leo are slowly encircling each other.
An intense and exhilarating 24 hours in the lives of four teenagers on the verge: of adulthood, of HSC, of finding out just who they are, and who they want to be.
A lyrical new YA novel from the award-winning author of Chasing Charlie Duskin and the Gracie Faltrain series.
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Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
Jeff Chang, D.J. Kool Herc
4.5
Can't Stop Won't Stop is a powerful cultural and social history of the end of the American century, and a provocative look into the new world that the hip-hop generation created.
Forged in the fires of the Bronx and Kingston, Jamaica, hip-hop became the Esperanto of youth rebellion and a generation-defining movement. In a post-civil rights era defined by deindustrialization and globalization, hip-hop crystallized a multiracial, polycultural generation's worldview, and transformed American politics and culture. But that epic story has never been told with this kind of breadth, insight, and style.
Based on original interviews with DJs, b-boys, rappers, graffiti writers, activists, and gang members, with unforgettable portraits of many of hip-hop's forebears, founders, and mavericks, including DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Chuck D, and Ice Cube, Can't Stop Won't Stop chronicles the events, the ideas, the music, and the art that marked the hip-hop generation's rise from the ashes of the 60's into the new millennium.
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Recommended by Dorian Lynskey and Doug Rossinow.
Dorian Lynskey
This is not the biography of a single activist. It is a kind of sociopolitical history of hip-hop. It goes back a long way. Chang spends a lot of time describing the rise of gangs from the late 1960s. He tells you a lot about 1970s New York. Hip-hop really started as an artform long before most people outside the Bronx were aware of it. And I loved this social background because it shows that if people had a curiosity about the music you could show them all this other stuff. [source]
Doug Rossinow
Hip-hop culture was the authentic cultural expression of young people of color in America at a time when they saw fairly bleak prospects for themselves. [source]
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Spraycan Art
Henry Chalfant, James Prigoff
4.5
Shows examples of graffiti from around the world and shares the opinions of graffiti artists about their work.
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You're Welcome, Universe
Whitney Gardner
4.4
When Julia finds a slur about her best friend scrawled across the back of the Kingston School for the Deaf, she covers it up with a beautiful (albeit illegal) graffiti mural.
Her supposed best friend snitches, the principal expels her, and her two mothers set Julia up with a one-way ticket to a “mainstream” school in the suburbs, where she’s treated like an outcast as the only deaf student. The last thing she has left is her art, and not even Banksy himself could convince her to give that up.
Out in the ’burbs, Julia paints anywhere she can, eager to claim some turf of her own. But Julia soon learns that she might not be the only vandal in town. Someone is adding to her tags, making them better, showing off—and showing Julia up in the process. She expected her art might get painted over by cops. But she never imagined getting dragged into a full-blown graffiti war.
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The Fortress of Solitude
Jonathan Lethem
4.4
The Fortress of Solitude is the story of Dylan Ebdus growing up white and motherless in downtown Brooklyn in the 1970s. It's a neighborhood where the entertainments include muggings along with games of stoopball. In that world, Dylan has one friend, a black teenager, also motherless, named Mingus Rude. As Lethem follows the knitting and unraveling of their friendship, he creates an overwhelmingly rich and emotionally gripping canvas of race and class, superheros, gentrification, funk, hip-hop, graffiti tagging, loyalty, and memory. The Fortress of Solitude is the first great urban coming of age novel to appear in years. (back cover)
So here are my three must read books. I've been reading a lot of great books like: Outsmart Your Instincts, The Culture Code, and Antonio Damasio’s The Strange Order, and sometimes when you read a lot of nonfiction it’s very enriching, sometimes you need a novel. I really believe you should take a minute and read something beautiful. Listen, listen to Lolita by Nabokov. But also listen to Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy and listen to Richard Poe narrate that. Those are two of the greatest feats of the english language that I can think of. Then there’s Fortress of Solitude, an amazing book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, these are great novels. Cold Mountain is a beautiful novel, Snow Falling On Cedars, I mean they’ve been around for a while. But goddamnit, get those under your belt. Those are the novels I think you should read. You know Love In The Time Of Cholera it just makes you ache. Kind of like a Hemingway thing, where Hemingway “ahh!”, it’s the same thing, you know. So I don’t know, I’m a fan of all those books. Those are my 3 slash 20 books. [source]
Lethem was one of the first people to write about the new Brooklyn. This is a beautiful coming-of-age novel. [source]
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Freight Train Graffiti
Roger Gastman, Darin Rowland, et al.
4.4
Like "Graffiti World," "Freight Train Graffiti" is the definitive history of a vibrant art form. Until now there was almost no written insight into this vast subculture, which inspires fascination across America and around the world. As dazzling as the art it celebrates, the book is packed with 1,000 full-color illustrations and features in-depth interviews with more than 125 train artists and "writers." Hundreds of never-before-seen photographs span the style's evolution, while the authoritative text from an all-star team of authors provides unprecedented perspective, including the first-ever written history of "monikers," the precursors of graffiti, developed by hobos and rail workers to communicate en route. Bound to surprise graffiti artists, graphic designers, and urban culture buffs alike, this book will inspire anyone who has ever been interested in graffiti.
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Banksy
Stefano Antonelli, Gianluca Marziani
4.4
The largest presentation of works by Banksy, the world’s most enigmatic yet highly sought-after artist, including iconic works, installation objects, ephemera, and memorabilia all in one volume.Banksy is the world’s most discussed artist of recent decades, and this seminal collection features hundreds of works including Girl with Balloon, Pulp Fiction, Love Is in the Air, Barcode, and Monkey Queen. It also includes scores of paintings, serigraphs, stencils, and installation objects as well as a selection of memorabilia—many of which have never been published previously. Created with the cooperation of Pest Control, the group that manages all things Banksy, this is as official and authorized as any Banksy publication could be. Banksy is the world’s greatest practitioner of street art. His work has always been political, involving pointed critiques of inequality, injustice, consumerism, and the establishment, yet no one knows his identity. He is an exemplary case of fame and notoriety built upon absence and anonymity. His relationship with the art market is also complex: marked by mocking hostility while being one of the most marketable and most collected contemporary artists.
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Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution
Cedar Lewisohn, Henry Chalfant
4.4
Over the last decade, street art—art made in public spaces including graffiti, stickers, stencil art, and wheat-pasting— has become one of the most popular and hotly discussed areas of art practice on the contemporary scene. Developing out of the graffiti-writing tradition of the 1980s through the work of artists such as Banksy and Futura 2000, it has long since reached the mainstream. Street Artis the first measured, critical account of the development of this global phenomenon. Tracing street art’s origins in cave painting through the Paris walls photographed by Brassai in the ’20s through the witty, sophisticated imagery found on city streets today, the book also features new and exclusive interviews with key figures associated with street art of the last 35 years, including Lady Pink, Barry McGee, Shepard Fairy, Futura 2000, Malcolm McLaren, Miss Van, and Os Gemeos. Street Art reveals the extent to which the walls and streets of cities around the world have become the birthplace of some of the most dynamic and inspirational art being made today.
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Graffbook. The Graffiti Sketchbook
Carpet Bombing Culture
4.3
Graffbook - The Graffiti Sketchbook.Everything for the armchair graffiti artist.Unleash your inner graffiti writer all over walls, trains, subways, freighters and sticker outlines in this beautiful black book. 168 pages of fresh clean walls to bomb, tag and throw up on. 120 pages of uncoated art paper and 48 pages of matte coated art paper. No CCTV. No cops. No rabid dogs. Just tonnes of inspirational illustration for you to deface, bomb over and throw up on at will. Whether you want to practice your tag, or you’re simply a marketing guy called Dave who just wants to live the dream during coffee breaks - Graffbook - The Graffiti Sketch Book is for you. GRAFFBOOK is all about inspiring you to be the most creative you possibly can be with just a pen and your imagination. Get your masterpiece up, top to bottom, on a whole, pristine-clean white wall without ever having to break a sweat. We just gave you the most fun sketch book ever. Now open that book and get busy with the ink!
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The Anatomical Shape of a Heart
Jenn Bennett
4.3
Beatrix Adams knows exactly how she’s spending the summer before her senior year. Determined to follow in Da Vinci’s footsteps, she’s ready to tackle the one thing that will give her an advantage in a museum-sponsored scholarship contest: drawing actual cadavers. But when she tries to sneak her way into the hospital’s Willed Body program and misses the last metro train home, she meets a boy who turns her summer plans upside down.
Jack is charming, wildly attractive, and possibly one of San Francisco’s most notorious graffiti artists. On midnight buses and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who Jack really is—and tries to uncover what he’s hiding that leaves him so wounded. But will these secrets come back to haunt him? Or will the skeletons in her family’s closet tear them apart?
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The Graffiti Art Coloring Book (Vol.1): Cool Graffiti Art Coloring Book for Adults and Teens With 40 Original Street Art Drawings, Graffiti Letters, Fonts, Characters, and Much More!
Minelli Press
4.3
-GRAFFITI AND STREET ART COLORING BOOKEnjoy hours of meditative relaxation and creativity by coloring beautiful Graffiti illustrations.This coloring book is ready to decorate with markers, colored pencils, gel pens, watercolors, brush pens, or any coloring implements you prefer.Coloring Book Details :Each coloring page is printed on a separate page to avoid bleed throughDesigns of various styles for all levels of coloring enthusiastsLarge 8.5 x 11" formatProfessional quality designsThis adult coloring book makes a great and beautiful gift idea for Graffiti and Street Art lovers.ENJOY !
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Forgive Everyone Everything
Gregory Boyle
4.3
2023 Illumination Book Awards Gold Medalist, Keepsake/Gift/Specality Bible 2023 Independent Press Awards Winner, Hispanic 2023 Independent Press Awards Distinguished Favorite, Gift Books 2023 Independent Press Awards Distinguished Favorite, Religion Nonfiction 2023 Association of Catholic Publishers Excellence in Publishing Awards, First Place (Tie), Prayer 2023 Catholic Media Association Book Awards, Second Place, Inclusion in the Church Gregory Boyle, SJ, spends his days at Homeboy Industries accompanying ex-gang members as they rebuild their lives. Forgive Everyone Everything is a powerful collection of his most poignant writings based on decades of experiences of loss and pain, redemption and renewal. All 50 reflections are accompanied by stunning street art from acclaimed artist and ex-gang member Fabian Debora, making this book a modern-day devotional that will provoke and inspire readers. “There’s no denying how difficult things can be. But the way out to the place of resilience, the place of restoration, the place of not allowing your heart to be hardened by resentment, relies on one thing: forgive everyone everything.”–Gregory Boyle
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The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location
Marc Taro Holmes
4.3
Make the world your studio!
Capture the bustle and beauty of life in your town.
Experience life as only an artist can! Join the rapidly growing, international movement of artists united by a passion for drawing on location in the cities, towns and villages where they live and travel. Packed with art and advice from Marc Taro Holmes, artist and co-founder of Urbansketchers.org, this self-directed workshop shows you how to draw inspiration from real life and bring that same excitement into your sketchbook. Inside you'll fi nd everything you need to tackle subjects ranging from still lifes and architecture to people and busy street scenes.
15 step-by-step demonstrations cover techniques for creating expressive drawings using pencil, pen and ink, and watercolor. Expert tips for achieving a balance of accuracy, spontaneity and speed. Practical advice for working in the field, choosing subjects, coping with onlookers, capturing people in motion and more. Daily exercises and creative prompts for everything from improving essential skills to diverse approaches, such as montages, storytelling portraits and one-page graphic novels. Whether you are a habitual doodler or a seasoned artist, The Urban Sketcher will have you out in the world sketching from the very first page. By completing drawings on the spot, in one session, you achieve a fresh impression of not just what you see, but also what it feels like to be there . . . visual life stories as only you can experience them.
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Graffiti Women: Street Art from Five Continents
Nicholas Ganz
4.3
From the author of the enormously successful "Graffiti World" comes this spectacular follow-up, celebrating the contributions of women to contemporary graffiti and street art. Female writers have always been in the vanguard of the graffiti movement, though often shunted to the sidelines by their male counterparts. This exhaustive volume places them front and center, featuring 1,000 full-color illustrations from some of the world's most prominent artists, including Brazil's Nina, Japan's Sasu, Mexico's Peste, and the Americans Lady Pink, Swoon, and Miss 17. Two eight-page fold-out collages, a fold-out poster jacket, and an authoritative text round out the impressive package. The first and only comprehensive survey of its kind, this book is sure to attract and expand upon the wide and enthusiastic readership that made "Graffiti World" such a runaway success.
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Hip Hop Files (Hc)
Martha Cooper, Akim Walta, Zephyr, Charlie Ahearn, FABEL, Patti Astor
4.3
Hip hop culture emerged from an environment of extreme deprivation and decay in the South Bronx, New York City. The concept of pure invention--of creating something from nothing--was in full effect at the end of the 1970s as graffiti ("borrowed" spray paint), breaking (cardboard as dance floor), and outdoor jams (electricity source: the base of street lights) captured the attention of urban youth, coalescing into new forms of artistic expression. Fortunately, photographer Martha Cooper was at the right place at the right time to document the people that created the music, dance, and art that became known worldwide. Cooper followed people who would one day become icons: the Rock Steady Crew, Fab 5 Freddy, Duro and Dondi, Lady Pink, and Afrika Bambaataa, to name a few. Now, Martha Cooper has the reputation of being the first and foremost photographer of hip hop culture in New York City. While the publication of Cooper's photographs in the early 80s disseminated the culture both at home and abroad, her new book, Hip Hop Files: Photographs 1979-1984, makes a significant part of her extensive and unique archive accessible for the first time. From 1999 to 2003, the German hip hop head and music publisher Akim Walta tracked down the subjects in Cooper's legendary shots and conducted numerous interviews obtaining insightful quotes and statements to accompany and add voices to the photographs. Other members of the early hip hop scene, including Zephyr, Charlie Ahearn, Fabel, and Patti Astor, contribute text and essays adding fresh data to the growing body of hip hop history.
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Graffiti Lettering Workbook For Beginners: A Step-By-Step Guide to Master Graffiti Blockletters, Throw-ups, Tagging, Calligraffiti, Old School, and Wildstyle Letters.
Minelli Press
4.3
GRAFFITI LETTERING BOOK - FROM ALPHABET PRACTICING TO GRAFFITI PIECING Are you interested in mastering the art of graffiti art lettering? Look no further than this Graffiti Lettering Workbook for Beginners! This book is an all-in-one guide to learning the basics of the alphabet, as well as advanced techniques like graffiti piecing. It even includes ample space for practice and plenty of step-by-step instructions to help you along the way.What sets this book apart is its emphasis on different lettering styles. You'll learn how to create Blackletters, Throw-ups, Tagging, Calligraffiti, Old School, and Wildstyle lettering, which will help you create unique and stunning designs. Plus, the book also covers more advanced techniques so you can take your skills to the next level.Book details :6 Graffiti lettering styles8.5 x 11" - The large and perfect size;Easy tutorials for beginners;Detailed instructions & techniques;Worksheets for practice;No drawing experience is required.
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The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing On Location Around The World
Gabriel Campanario
4.3
The Art of Urban Sketching is both a comprehensive guide and a showcase of location drawings by artists around the world who draw the cities where they live and travel. Authored by the founder of the nonprofit organization Urban Sketchers (www.urbansketchers.org), this beautiful, 320-page volume explains urban sketching within the context of a long historical tradition and how it is being practiced today. With profiles of leading practitioners and discussions of the benefits of working in this art form, this inspiring book shows how one can participate and experience this creative outlet through modern-day social networks and online activity. You'll find more than 600 beautiful, contemporary illustrations, as well as artists' profiles and extended captions where these urban sketchers share their stories, how they work, sketching tips, and the tools behind each drawing. With sketches and observations from more than 50 cities in more than 30 countries, The Art of Urban Sketching offers a visually arresting, storytelling take on urban life from different cultures and artistic styles, as well as insight into various drawing techniques and mediums.
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Graff: The Art & Technique of Graffiti
Scape Martinez
4.3
Once viewed as merely a blemish on the urban landscape, graffiti today has evolved into a legitimate art form in its own right, influencing entertainment, advertising, fashion and other creative industries worldwide.
In this unprecedented book, master graffiti artist Scape Martinez shows how he does his thing, offering streetwise advice to help other -writers- create maximum-impact, legally sanctioned work. Step by step, he lays out the philosophies and realities of the genre. From picking a -tag- and developing letterforms, to the logistics of prepping a wall and working a spray can in a painterly fashion, Graff will help you find your style and leave your mark--large and loud.
A breakdown of the fundamental elements of graffiti-style--letters, character, backgrounds--and how they work together and intermingle with arrows, symbols, quotes and tags From paper to wall, a start-to-finish approach for creating graffiti in various styles 5 on-site step-by-step demonstrations show the creation of various types of compositions, from throw ups to full-blown pieces Complete with a glossary and a timeline tracing graffiti history, Graff is the bible for street artists looking to elevate their work, graphic designers wanting to expand their vocabulary, and anyone interested in giving their work an edgy, urban look.
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Going All City: Struggle and Survival in LA's Graffiti Subculture
Stefano Bloch
4.3
“We could have been called a lot of things: brazen vandals, scared kids, threats to social order, self-obsessed egomaniacs, marginalized youth, outsider artists, trend setters, and thrill seekers. But, to me, we were just regular kids growing up hard in America and making the city our own. Being ‘writers’ gave us something to live for and ‘going all city’ gave us something to strive for; and for some of my friends it was something to die for.”
In the age of commissioned wall murals and trendy street art, it’s easy to forget graffiti’s complicated and often violent past in the United States. Though graffiti has become one of the most influential art forms of the twenty-first century, cities across the United States waged a war against it from the late 1970s to the early 2000s, complete with brutal police task forces. Who were the vilified taggers they targeted? Teenagers, usually, from low-income neighborhoods with little to their names except a few spray cans and a desperate need to be seen—to mark their presence on city walls and buildings even as their cities turned a blind eye to them.
Going All City is the mesmerizing and painful story of these young graffiti writers, told by one of their own. Prolific LA writer Stefano Bloch came of age in the late 1990s amid constant violence, poverty, and vulnerability. He recounts vicious interactions with police; debating whether to take friends with gunshot wounds to the hospital; coping with his mother’s heroin addiction; instability and homelessness; and his dread that his stepfather would get out of jail and tip his unstable life into full-blown chaos. But he also recalls moments of peace and exhilaration: marking a fresh tag; the thrill of running with his crew at night; exploring the secret landscape of LA; the dream and success of going all city.
Bloch holds nothing back in this fierce, poignant memoir. Going All City is an unflinching portrait of a deeply maligned subculture and an unforgettable account of what writing on city walls means to the most vulnerable people living within them.
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Banksy.: You Are an Acceptable Level of Threat
Gary Shove, Patrick Potter
4.3
A collection of photographs of Banksy's street work. You Are An Acceptable Level of Threat concentrates on this singular artist's iconic imagery, spanning the late '90s up until the end of 2011. The locations are from around the world (predominantly the UK, US and Europe), and many images have never been seen before. When Banksy started out painting, the political landscape was bleak. Fortunately now, it's ten times worse. As Banksy's cheerfully aggressive political work becomes ever more relevant, this comprehensive tome sets about presenting his art in the context of the era he was responding to.
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Graffiti New York
Eric Felisbret, Luke Felisbret
4.3
Decades after the movement globalized, New York is still the mecca of graffiti culture. Painting there is a badge of honor, with graffiti artists from around the globe making pilgrimages to New York for that purpose. This is the city where it all began, yet few know the back story.
Graffiti New York fills that gap, detailing the concepts, aesthetics, ideals, and social structures that have served as a cultural blueprint for graffiti movements across the world. The book features approximately 1,000 images, complemented by texts by the authors and relevant players in the movement, as well as descriptive graphics and sidebars.
Ranging from the birth of simple signature tags to today’s vibrant murals, and covering the ups and downs of the movement, the culture’s value system, its social framework, the various forms of graffiti, and significant artists and crews, Graffiti New York is a major addition to Abrams' superb books on graffiti art.
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Obey: Supply and Demand
Shepard Fairey
4.2
From Obey to Obama and all that s in between, Supply & Demand, The Art of Shepard Fairey - 20th Anniversary Edition expands upon the previous version of this book and adds 100 new pages of illustrations and text to showcase Fairey s entire body of work, a massive retrospective covering 20 colorful years. Thrust into the spotlight for his image of President-elect Barack Obama, Fairey helped catalyze a movement from his unique vantage at the intersection of art, popular culture and politics. The book includes versions of the image as well as a copy of correspondence from the President himself thanking Mr. Fairey for his support.
Through the lens of esteemed writers and critics such as Carlo McCormick, Steven Heller, Henry Rollins, Rob Walker, Roger Gastman and more, readers can learn about Shepard Fairey, the roots of the omnipresent OBEY street art campaign, his design practice and prolific gallery exhibitions.
This massive book pulls no punches
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Graffiti Cookbook: The Complete Do-It-Yourself-Guide to Graffiti
Bj Almqvist, Tobias Barenthin Lindblad, et al.
4.2
The complete DIY bible of graffiti. Now in softcover! A rich source of inspiration for anyone interested in do-it-yourself culture. Graffiti Cookbook is a guide to the materials and techniques used within today s most creative and progressive art movement. In hundreds of pictures and illustrations and a dozen of interviews with some of the world s most famous artists the authors show how graffiti is made. From spray techniques and hand styles to tools and style analysis, Graffiti Cookbook takes us on a trip around the world in the search of the tricks and trades of graffiti writers. After hundreds of books filled with pictures of graffiti published in the last few years finally one is showing how the artists work. Graffiti Cookbook is filled with tips and examples of how to create your own piece, tag and throw up. These techniques can be used on all kinds of materials, textile, glass, metal, concrete or wood. Graffiti Cookbook gives an unique insight in the alternative art world and is a rich inspiration source for those interested in do-it-yourself-culture. Swet, Jurne, Mad C, Egs and Chob are some of the featured artists in the book."
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The Art of Getting Over: Graffiti at the Millennium
Stephen Powers
4.2
What started as simple street movement, a way to assert individuality and pride, has blossomed into much more: Graffiti is everywhere. From Sprite commercials to The Source magazine to Soho art galleries, the elements and vernacular of the graffiti aesthetic are apparent in today's society. This book examines graffiti's influence from its earliest days to its undeniable ubiquity now. Written by an insider, it includes a general history, in-depth interviews with both the progenitors of the form and current artists, and full-color illustrations of the most important works over the last 30 years. Unlike other subcultures that have been corrupted by the media and the mainstream, graffiti has maintained its sense of the underground and its clandestine feel. The purity and integrity that have defined the graffiti writer's mission have never faltered. The Art of Getting Over offers an unprecedented glimpse into this deeply affecting urban art form.
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The Faith of Graffiti
Norman Mailer, Jon Naar
4.2
The Faith of Graffiti is the classic, definitive look at the birth of graffiti as an art form, pairing the fascinating 1974 essay by Norman Mailer—National Book Award and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Naked and the Dead and The Executioner’s Song—with the stunning, iconic photography of internationally acclaimed photographer Jon Naar. Back in print for the first time in three decades and expanded with 32 pages of additional photos, The Faith of Graffiti is a landmark in the history of street art: an essential, contemporary, and still-relevant meditation, in words and pictures, on the meaning of identity, property, and city life.
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Banksy You Are an Acceptable Level of Threat
Patrick Potter
4.2
New expanded 248pp 2019 Edition. The single best collection of photography of Banksy's street work that has ever been assembled for print. If that isn't enough there are some words too. You Are An Acceptable Level of Threat covers his entire street art career, spanning the late '90s right up to the 'Seasons Greetings' Christmas 2018 piece in Port Talbot, Wales. This new edition includes his self-destructing 'Love is in the Bin' intervention, which according to Sotheby's is "the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction." The groundbreaking 'Dismaland' show, his Paris '68 revisited works, The Walled Off Hotel, Brexit, Cans Festival, Brookyln and Basquiat, as well as new works from Gaza and New York. Also featuring the controversial 'Cheltenham Spies' as well as 'Girl with a Pearl Earring', 'Art Buff' and the spectacular 'Mobile Lovers' which appeared outside Bristol Boys Boxing Club. 248 pages featuring his greatest works of art in context.
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Blank Comic Book (Draw Your Own Comics): A Large Notebook and Sketchbook for Kids and Adults to Draw Comics and Journal
Lux Reads
4.2
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33
Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art and Street Culture
Aaron Rose, Christian Strike, Alex Baker, Arty Nelson, Jocko Weyland, Mike Mills, Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, Ryan McGinness, Harmony Korine, Ed Templeton, Chris Johanson, Shepard Fairey
4.2
The greatest cultural accomplishments in history have never been the result of the brainstorms of marketing men, corporate focus groups or any homogenized methods; they have always happened organically. More often than not, these manifestations have been the result of a few like-minded people coming together to create something new and original for no other purpose than a common love of doing it. In the 1990s, a loose-knit group of American artists and creators, many just out of their teens, began their careers in just such a way. Influenced by the popular underground youth subcultures of the day, such as skateboarding, graffiti, street fashion and independent music, artists like Shepard Fairey, Mark Gonzales, Spike Jonze, Margaret Kilgallen, Mike Mills, Barry McGee, Phil Frost, Chris Johanson, Harmony Korine and Ed Templeton began to create art that reflected the lifestyles they led. Many had no formal training and almost no conception of the inner workings of the art world. They learned their crafts through practice, trial and error, and good old-fashioned innovation. Not since the Beat Generation have we seen a group of creative individuals with such a unified aesthetic sense and varied cultural facets. The world of art has been greatly affected by their accomplishments as have the worlds of fashion, music, literature, film, and, ironically, athletics. Beautiful Losers is a retrospective celebration of this spirit, with hundreds of artworks by over two dozen artists, from precursors like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Larry Clark, to more recent adherents Ryan McGinness, KAWS and Geoff McFetridge. Work in all conceivable mediums is included, plus reproductions of reams of ephemera. The accompanying essays are contributed by a half-dozen writers who have championed these beautiful losers from the start. This paperback reprint includes more pages, more images, an exhibition checklist, installation shots from a variety of exhibitions and an interview with Beautiful Losers advocate Agnes B.
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34
Kings Way: The Beginnings of Australian Graffiti: Melbourne 1983–93
Duro Cubrilo, Martin Harvey, Karl Stamer
4.2
A comprehensive account of the first decade of the graffiti-writing subculture in Melbourne, Australia, this compilation pays tribute to the individual writers and crews who established the city’s reputation as a global street-art presence. Beginning with the year 1983, this volume depicts the rapid changes in styles in these early years as Melbourne’s graffiti changed from simple scrawls to intricate murals of astonishing complexity. Part visual encyclopedia and part social history, this compelling record details the events, spaces, materials, and folklore of what made up the lives of the early graffiti artists.
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35
Graffiti Animals: An Adult Coloring Book with Badass Animal Drawings, Stress Relieving Doodles, and Street Art with Attitude!
Jade Summer
4.2
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36
Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation
J. Faith Almiron
4.2
How hip-hop culture and graffiti electrified the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat and his contemporaries in 1980s New York
In the early 1980s, art and writing labeled as graffiti began to transition from New York City walls and subway trains onto canvas and into art galleries. Young artists who freely sampled from their urban experiences and their largely Black, Latinx and immigrant histories infused the downtown art scene with expressionist, pop and graffiti-inspired compositions.
Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-88) became the galvanizing, iconic frontrunner of this transformational and insurgent movement in contemporary American art, which resulted in an unprecedented fusion of creative energies that defied longstanding racial divisions. Writing the Future features Basquiat's works in painting, sculpture, drawing, video, music and fashion, alongside works by his contemporaries--and sometimes collaborators--A-One, ERO, Fab 5 Freddy, Futura, Keith Haring, Kool Koor, LA2, Lady Pink, Lee Qui�ones, Rammellzee and Toxic. Throughout the 1980s, these artists fueled new directions in fine art, design and music, reshaping the predominantly white art world and driving the now-global popularity of hip-hop culture.
Writing the Future, published to accompany a major exhibition, contextualizes Basquiat's work in relation to his peers associated with hip-hop culture. It also marks the first time Basquiat's extensive, robust and reflective portraiture of his Black and Latinx friends and fellow artists has been given prominence in scholarship on his oeuvre. With contributions from Carlo McCormick, Liz Munsell, Hua Hsu, J. Faith Almiron and Greg Tate, Writing the Future captures the energy, inventiveness and resistance unleashed when hip-hop hit the city.--Lauren Christensen "New York Times"
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37
A Visual Protest: The Art of Banksy
Gianni Mercurio
4.2
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38
Michael De Feo: Flowers
Michael De Feo
4.2
As an art student in 1993, Michael De Feo drew a simple bloom that became a familiar and welcome presence in New York after he spent countless nights pasting hundreds of versions of it all over the city’s building walls. Twenty-five years later, these flowers have been sighted in more than 60 international cities. His street works took a new direction in 2015 when a guerrilla art collective provided him access to the cases that protect bus-shelter ads, enabling him to launch a beautiful campaign of his blossoms on top of fashion ads. His art has taken many forms, including a substantial body of studio work inspired by Dutch 17th-century paintings and another series which married floral themes with Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian portraiture. De Feo’s colorful and lively book reproduces more than 200 of his flower-inspired images and features commentary from a diverse group of people who have supported his often-clandestine work.
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Blade: King of Graffiti
Steven Ogburn
4.2
BLADE has already told his life story through graffiti. Now, more than forty years into his career and armed with an incredible memory, BLADE sits down with Chris Pape to reflect on growing up in the Bronx in the turbulent 1970s, and recounts the highs and lows of his storied career, holding nothing back. BLADE is considered "The King of Graffiti" because, by 1980, after painting 5,000 wildly creative trains, he stopped counting. This book parallels the New York graffiti movement almost from its inception, moving through its glory years in the mid-1970s, when BLADE earned his title, and ending in the global art scene, where he remains a major presence. BLADE helped New York graffiti become internationally famous by making it look fun, and, for reasons of quantity, quality, and, perhaps above all, for sheer spirit, BLADE may very well be the most popular graffiti artist with his peers.
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40
Lost Walls: A Calligraffiti Journey Through Tunisia
el Seed
4.2
Lost or forgotten were the walls that now proudly carry the messages of calligraffiti artist eL Seed. "Lost Walls," his first book, beautifully and poetically documents these walls, handpicked during his road trip around Tunisia. "Lost Walls" is a calligraffiti journey of discovery for eL Seed, who chronicles the painting of 24 walls in four weeks. Inspired by the reaction to his largest project to date, the minaret of the Jara mosque in his ancestral home of Gabes, eL Seed decided to set out on this month-long personal journey across his motherland, painting "lost" walls along the way. This book provides unique and rare insight into the world of calligraffiti and the Tunisian people.
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41
Graffiti Lettering & Drawing for Beginners: Draw Over the Outlines of Graffiti Lettering, Color Pieces & Complete Fun Challenges
Chickpeach Studio
4.2
Graffiti Lettering and Drawing for Beginners is an excellent introduction to the world of graffiti art. Draw over the outlines of graffiti lettering, color pieces, and complete fun challenges. This book also includes street environments to practice your new art skills. Learn to Draw Graffiti Art & LetteringGraffiti Activity BookAdult Relaxation80 PagesBlank Reverse Pages To Avoid Ink BleedUnique Street Environments To Practice Your ArtGreat Gift for a Graffiti Enthusiast & ArtistsGreat for All Skill Levels
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42
Keith Haring/Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines
Dieter Buchhart, Anna Karina Hofbauer, Ricardo Montez, Rene Ricard, Myles Russell-Cook, Larry Warsh, Anke Wiedmann, and Linda Yablonksy
4.2
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43
Portraiture of Los Angeles: Vol. 1
Estevan Oriol
4.2
Iconic photographer/director Estevan Oriol releases a follow-up to his cornerstone LA Woman book: Portraiture of Los Angeles Volume 1. The release of Oriol's first published book, LA Woman (2009), caught fans and followers by surprise. Capturing the women of Los Angeles in their most confronting, gritty environments it was not the subject matter he was most well-known for. It established Estevan Oriol as the king of female street photography, cementing his reputation as Los Angeles' most respected street photographer. LA Woman was a smash hit, selling out globally in a very short time. Portraiture of Los Angeles Volume 1 is the next compelling installment of Oriol's work to date. This series will comprise hundreds of photos documenting the most amazing, real L.A street life the public has ever witnessed, from the lense of its originator Estevan Oriol. Dealing with sensitive environments and highly guarded subjects, Oriol has earned the trust and respect of the streets at all levels - from taking images on set of Hollwood's A list, to the most reclusive hoods in Los Angeles and all over the world. In commemoration of the release, the following activities will take place: a series of viral videos will be launched bringing you up close with the subject matter; Gallery shows and events will take place strategically around the world. Apart from pioneering genres of street photography, Estevan Oriol is also creating a new road map of how the normal systems of publishing have been working, inviting his fans to be a part of the process and to easily access content. Drago and SA Studios Global (SASG) - Oriol's creative conglomerate - have entered into a partnership with the intention of revisiting the current publishing model. Recognizing the importance of digital in this new frontier, the physical is just as important.
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44
Bomb the Suburbs: Graffiti, Race, Freight-Hopping and the Search for Hip Hop's Moral Center
William Upski Wimsatt
4.2
In this blockbuster word-of-mouth, underground classic, Bomb the Suburbs: Graffiti, Race, Freight-Hopping and the Search for Hip Hop's Moral Center, William Upski Wimsatt attacks the whole idea of the suburb as "an unfortunate state- of-mind..., founded on fear, conformity, shallowness of character, and dullness of imagination." Upski uses his coming of age in the Chicago break dancing and hip hop scene as a springboard into a totally original discussion of american identity. Bomb the Suburbs: Graffiti, Race, Freight-Hopping and the Search for Hip Hop's Moral Center is a brilliant dissection and advocacy for a real alternative, using art, parody, reportage and downright good writing.
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45
Style: Writing From The Under Ground
IGTimes
4.2
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46
Stickers 2: More Stuck-Up Crap
DB Burkeman
4.2
A new bible of sticker art--a visual history of street art in one of its most elemental, accessible, provocative, and ubiquitous forms--with twelve pages of collectible stickers
A new bible of sticker art--a visual history of street art in one of its most elemental, accessible, provocative, and ubiquitous forms--with twelve pages of collectible stickers This follow-up volume features more than 3,000 stickers from the vibrant and constantly evolving world of street art, where DIY culture meets music, graffiti, design, and branding. Cheap, democratic, easy to "tag," and not always fast to fade, the sticker has been an ever-present medium from the New York and London punk scenes to skate culture and political expression. Organized by theme, chapters move from Music and Skateboarding to Streetwear, Graffiti, Fine Art, and Political Activism, and include sections on sticker art and the origins of surf and BMX culture. The diverse range of works features stickers by fine artists such as KAWS and Jenny Holzer; street artists such as BANKSY, Neckface, ESPO, and Barry McGee; and a host of amateurs who tag the streets anonymously. With texts from celebrated writers--including INVADER, Paul Gorman, Stikman, and C. R. Stecyk, among many others--More Stuck-Up Crap reveals not only the cutting edge of sticker art but also the personal relationships that street artists and pedestrians share with the medium. And with 12 pages of removable stickers, this book will be as collectible and coveted as the originals spotted on the streets.
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47
Stickerbomb 3
Studio Rarekwai
4.2
Stickers are an essential part of the street art movement. Inexpensive and easy to produce, they act as a kind of informal business card for some graffiti writers, and a quick and effective promotional tool for many artists and illustrators. As more and more stickers are placed around major cities in the world, interest in the subject keeps growing.
Stickers have been the subject of many street art publications to date, but most of these are collections of photographs of stickers spotted in urban environments. These books are missing the fundamental fun of stickers – the fun of peeling and sticking, and of owning and collecting cool stickers.
This collectable, fully-peelable sticker book featuring illustration, graffiti and graphics, is filled with an amazing collection of more than 250 specially-commissioned stickers by artists, illustrators and graffiti writers from around the world, many of whom have not been featured in a publication before. It will appeal to a young market of designers, street artists and illustrators, plus street art fans and anyone who collects stickers.
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48
Graffiti 365
Jay Edlin, Andrew Witten
4.2
Graffiti 365 delivers the first real insider’s view into the contemporary graffiti and street-art scenes, as well as their antecedents. A fun, wide-ranging survey of the international graffiti movement, this book uses more than 600 rare, previously unpublished, or legendary images to introduce and describe important artists—from Blade to Banksy—and styles—from bubble to wild. Along the way, Graffiti 365 covers different eras, cities, legendary walls and crews, police and public responses to graffiti, and more. The author of Graffiti 365, J.SON, has been an artist and historian of the graffiti movement for decades—he started writing graffiti in 1973 and retired in 1984. Unparalleled in its breadth and depth of coverage, Graffiti 365 is a wide-angle snapshot of an entire movement.
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49
The Notebooks
Jean-Michel Basquiat
4.2
Brooklyn-born Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-88) was one of the most important artists of the 1980s. A key figure in the New York art scene, he inventively explored the interplay between words and images throughout his career, first as a member of SAMO, a graffiti group active on the Lower East Side in the late 1970s, and then as a painter acclaimed for his unmistakable Neoexpressionist style. From 1980 to 1987, he filled numerous working notebooks with drawings and handwritten texts. This facsimile edition reproduces the pages of seven of these fascinating and rarely seen notebooks for the first time.
The notebooks are filled with images and words that recur in Basquiat's paintings and other works. Iconic drawings and pictograms of crowns, teepees, and hatch-marked hearts share space with handwritten texts, including notes, observations, and poems that often touch on culture, race, class, and life in New York. Like his other work, the notebooks vividly demonstrate Basquiat's deep interests in comic, street, and pop art, hip-hop, politics, and the ephemera of urban life. They also provide an intimate look at the working process of one of the most creative forces in contemporary American art.
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50
Pow! Wow! Worldwide!: 10 Years of International Street Art
Jasper Wong
4.2
Since its founding in 2010, the POW! WOW! mural festival has quickly become a preeminent leader in the street art world. With annual exhibitions and events taking place across the globe, POW! WOW! has featured hundreds of internationally renowned street artists, each creating large scale public murals and works of art. Annual POW! WOW! Festivals occur around the world including in Honolulu Hawai'i, Long Beach, CA, Worcester, MA, San Jose, CA and Washington D.C. International events occur every year as well, notably in Tokyo, Korea, Rotterdam, Israel and Taiwan. Artists who have participated in POW! WOW! events include Shepard Fairey, D*Face, Audrey Kawasaki, James Jean, Nychos and Esao Andrews, to name a few.
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51
Graffiti Kings: New York City Mass Transit Art of the 1970's
Jack Stewart
4.2
Graffiti Kings is the definitive book on New York's subway graffiti movement, an unprecedented creative explosion that occurred across the five boroughs during the 1970s. This rare, firsthand account of the birth of this movement is the first and only graffiti book to reveal what happened behind the scenes when writers put their lives on the line to grab a piece of fame from a faceless urban landscape.
Through personal interviews and over 275 full-color, previously unpublished photographs, the colorful origins of subway graffiti are brought to life. Legends such as Taki 183, Blade 1, Phase 2, and Co-Co 144, as well as the city officials who saw the writers as public menaces and their art as vandalism, give accounts of everyday struggles, each full of new advancements, excitement, and risk. Although author and photographer Jack Stewart maintained a low profile at the time, his work is now a graffiti-world legend: rumored to exist, seldom seen, a near-equivalent to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Alongside archival photographs of everything from vibrant bubble-letter and 3-D pieces to the Holy Grail, the whole-train pieces, are maps, images, and ephemera that help fill out the complete story. A celebration in words and pictures of graffiti's golden age, Graffiti Kings is a book sure to be coveted by those fascinated and inspired by this uniquely American urban art form.
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52
The History of American Graffiti
Roger Gastman, Caleb Neelon
4.2
With 40 years of history as an organized artistic lifestyle sport, graffiti has sprung from the neglected neighbourhoods of New York and Philadelphia to cover cities throughout the world. This book provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the roots of a subculture that has managed to movemainstream without losing its edge.
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53
Fuzz One: A Bronx Childhood
Vincent Fedorchak
4.2
Fuzz One is the staggering, outrageous, true story of a raucous and wholly unsupervised childhood in the Bronx of the 1970s. Through Vincent Fedorchak's hilarious deadpan narration of a wild existence wrought with adolescent braggadocio, we are taken on a rough journey through a deteriorating Bronx jungle-wonderland where property value was plummeting and kids ruled the streets. Whether executing a bizarre graffiti mission in another borough with all the insanity of a special ops soldier, fearlessly tracking down Satan-worshippers camped out in the old castles in Van Cortlandt Park, or being the first white boy inducted into the infamous Ebony Dukes street gang, Fedorchak never flinches. Filled with hundreds of never-before-published photos of graffiti art and Bronx cityscapes, as well as first-hand accounts of the exploits of legendary graffiti artists such as DONDI, BLADE, COMET, NOC 167, BOOTS 119, and others, Fuzz One is a guided tour of a heretofore uncharted Bronx underworld. This epic tale of youth gone awry fully captures an important era of cultural upheaval in New York City's history. It is set apart from other memoirs via the inclusion of more than 300 images, nearly all in color, that give the volume strong historical, anthropological and cultural appeal.
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54
Calligraffiti: The Graphic Art of Niels Shoe Meulman
Niels SHOE Meulman
4.2
'Calligraffiti - The Graphic Art of Niels "SHOE" Meulman' is an impressive publication that presents a large selection of typographic works by Niels Shoe Meulman arranged in a uniquely simplistic manner; every spread presents two interacting visuals on its opposing pages. This repeating duality makes this book much more than just a collection of the artists best work; it unveils the basis of all graphic art. The idea of universal harmony, sometimes described as yin and yang, is translated to the 21st century. Like black and white or even less and more. Throughout the book there will be comments written by Adam Eeuwens and the artist. The book will also include an essay by Adam Eeuwens about the artist and the significance of his work. Niels Shoe Meulman is a contemporary Dutch calligrapher, typographer and designer who successfully made the transition from the street to high end design. His work can be described as classical freehand calligraphy combined with street edge and contemporary design aesthetic. With firm roots in graffiti, Shoe is a member of Europes infamous Crime Time Kings who ruled supreme in the 80s and 90s.Today, his design and typographic works are included in the permanent collections of MOMA San Francisco and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. They can also be found wandering the streets, gracing a range of luxurious silk scarves out on his Unruly label worn by fashionistas and Hip Hop heads alike.
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55
Blek le Rat
Sybille Prou, King Adz
4.1
Street artist Blek le Rat is revered and acknowledged by the international graffiti community, and his work has influenced CD design, advertising, and graphics, as well as the work of urban artists around the world.
From small, simple stencils to complex multimedia events, Blek's distinctive art is showcased here for the first time, demonstrating the development of his technique and creativity over two decades, from his unique images of Lady Diana and kidnapped journalist Florence Aubenas to his iconic silhouette of a rat.
The book features photographs of hundreds of Blek's works and an in-depth exploration of the method and meaning behind his stencils and posters, as well as a look at the evolution of urban art from New York, Paris, Barcelona, and Buenos Aires to London, Taipei, Naples, and Berlin.
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56
The Nasty Terrible T-Kid 170
First Last
4.1
The Nasty Terrible T-Kid 170 is the life story of graffiti writer T-Kid 170 from gang member to style mentor for urban youth--the uncensored Bronx hip hop story. At the age of sixteen, Julius Cavero was hit three times in a gang shoot-out in a park. Left there almost dead, he survived after weeks in a hospital emergency unit. With little else to do in the hospital, he drew endlessly, and it was there that he chose to become T-Kid 170--T for the tall and skinny look he had, and Kid just because that's what so many people called him. He had given up his gang life to focus on art. Few artists today can tell a tale like T-Kid's--a ghetto childhood, gangbanging, and daring feasts of graffiti. Too many of the others who were there left their lives or their art behind, but T-Kid, who won fame early on, lived to tell the tale and withstood his test of time. The Nasty Terrible T-Kid 170 retraces his life from the early 1960s to 2005 through his written accounts and artwork, including images of painted trains, walls, canvases, drawings, and sketches produced over the last thirty years. A journey through a life, an era, and the South Bronx, the book displays T-Kid's contributions to the graffiti movement and his role in the difficult and chaotic origins of hip hop.
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57
Going Postal
Martha Cooper
4.1
Postal stickers have long been a preferred substrate used by street artists to get up. Of course, because stickers from the US Postal Service, UPS, DHL and FEDEX are so readily available, many of these stickers get lost in the fray. That’s where graffiti photography legend Martha Cooper comes in. Shooting the origins of hip-hop and graffiti cultures since the late 1970s in New York City, and later all over the world, Cooper’s well-trained eyes know how to recognize deft sticker art. Going Postal is a collection of more than 200 photographs of some of Cooper’s favorite handmade postal stickers from around the world, done by both better-known and anonymous artists. Going Postal documents how an old-school method has burgeoned into a rich facet of the world’s graffiti cultures.
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58
Tattoo Design Book Vol. 3: Over 2,500 Minimalist Tattoo Designs for Artists, Professionals, and Amateurs. Original Designs That Inspire You to Create ... for Your First Tattoo. (Books for Adults)
J. Fabian Rama
4.1
Tattoo Design Book.Tattoo flash book for real tattoos. Minimalist tattoo designs for artists, professionals, and amateurs.Over 2500 tattoos will inspire you to create minimal and big designs.Idea and source of Inspiration for your first tattoo.Are you looking for a tattoo?A collection of over 2,500 small and large original tattoo designs to inspire you. The book includes flower tattoos, skulls, geometric, gothic, mystical, and esoteric motifs, tribal ornaments, butterflies, dream catchers, zodiac symbols, hearts, tattoos for men and women, animal tattoos, crosses, and much more. Every tattoo lover will find something for themselves. A great inspiration for artists, people who have no idea for their first tattoo, and more.Lots of tattoo ideas for you or your loved onesAbout this book:Over 2500 tattoos on different themesGreat as a source of inspiration for a new or next tattooPerfect gift idea for anyone who loves tattoosGreat gift for men and womenPerfect format 8.5 x 11 inches (21.59 x 27.94 cm)Bonus download PDF version via QR codeThis book is the perfect gift idea for tattoo lovers for Christmas or Birthdays, or maybe you run a tattoo studio and are looking for a book that will inspire your customers and more!Then scroll up and grab your copy now!
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59
Graffiti and Street Art
Anna Waclawek
4.1
Whether adored or abhorred, graffiti and street art provoke passionate debate. This is the first comprehensive popular survey of the art movement around the world. Organized thematically, it explores the origins of the movement and its evolution, the relationship between street art and the urban environment, its interactions with (or rejection of) the market and the world of commercial galleries, and the culture of street art online.
The book features a wide range of artists working in different media and styles across multiple countries. It explains the terms and language of street art—from tags and throwies to culture jamming and subvertising—as well as its multiple influences and sub-genres.
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60
Urban Sketching: 100 Postcards: 100 Beautiful Location Sketches from Around the World
Gabriel Campanario
4.1
Share 100 postcards featuring all your favorite cityscapes from Gabriel Campanario's The Art of Urban Sketching (Quarry Books). Enjoy beautiful and contemporary location drawings by artists around the world who draw the cities where they live and travel.
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61
Existencilism
Banksy
4.1
The second, eagerly awaited Banksy collection. Same handy pocket size as Banging Your Head...now in full, glorious color. As ever, the stencils and art are complemented with various commentary, thoughts and context from the man himself, together with various reviews and emails. Quite superb.
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62
Dondi White: Style Master General: The
Andrew Witten, Michael White
4.1
"In the beginning, there was the Word. On the streets and in the yards, the word was the Name. And the name was everything. It was persona and place, form and content, truth and fiction. The name was an act of self-invention, a pure visual manifestation, through alter ego, alias, and nom de plume, of personal expressions in the public realm. The name was a line and the line begat the Mark. Then, in the great style wars toward the end of the second millennium, medium, meaning, and message were joined in a golden era where the name became the source and signifier of Style. And when the name became wild style, the word was Dondi."
-- from the Foreword
The dominance of the graffiti aesthetic in contemporary culture is undeniable. But how did an art form spawned in the train yards of 1970s New York achieve the ubiquity it now enjoys at every level of the mass-media landscape? There are many answers to the question, but one major factor is indisputable: Dondi White.
Coming of age in hardscrabble East New York in the early 1970s, Dondi White unknowingly began the process of introducing a whole new artistic dialect into the cacophony of the American art scene. His train pieces painted from roughly 1977 to 1982 stand as some of the most influential works ever committed to Transit Authority steel. Writing with legendary partners such as DURO, NOC 167, KID 56, KEL 139, and FUZZ ONE, Dondi created some of graffiti art's most enduring iconography. His pieces just don't stop -- and neither do the aliases. From the badass Mr. Whites to the cocky, self-satisfied Busses, from the nasty Pres to the perfect, vicious Rolls, Dondi straight killed it, again and again. Works like Children of the Grave Part 2 and Mr White + Bev remain benchmark pieces for graffiti aficionados the world over.
In the 1980s, partially through his collaborations with noted photographers Henry Chalfant and Martha Cooper, Dondi White's work entered the rarefied world of fine art. In making the transition from subway car to canvas, Dondi retained his unfaltering sense of letter form and balance, and his paintings remain a testament to the clarity of his aesthetic. Dondi's canvases were subsequently shown in galleries from New York to Amsterdam to Tokyo and beyond, influencing a new generation of young artists and introducing an indigenous American art form to the rest of the world.
Dondi White: Style Master General presents the life and work of a seminal -- yet heretofore overlooked -- American artist whose work has resonated on every level of our popular culture. Filled with rare photographs, original sketches, unpublished interview materials, and testimony from some of Dondi's closest cohorts, here, finally, is the full story. At the time of his death in 1998, Dondi had seen the majority of his work destroyed -- scraped off, painted over, or chemically removed from the steel upon which it thrived. Within these pages, however, it still speaks volumes.
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63
Blank Manga Book: 120 Manga action pages, 7 panel layout, White Paper, Draw and create your own Manga scenes (White cover)
Manga Drawing Books
4.1
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64
Blackbook Graffiti Sketchbook: Notebook for Drawing, Painting, Sketching or Doodling - 118 Pages - White Blank and Brick Textured - 8.5 x 11 inches
187 Designz
4.1
Are you looking for a notebook to unleash your creativity and express yourself through graffiti art? Whether you want to sketch, draw, paint, or doodle, this graffiti sketchbook is perfect for you. It features 118 pages of high-quality paper that can handle any medium, from pencils to markers to paints. 98 pages are white blank while 29 pages have a brick texture on white background, so you can draw your piece straight on the wall. The large size of 8.5 x 11 inches gives you plenty of space to create your own masterpiece. Plus, the durable cover makes it easy to carry around and use anywhere. This blackbook graffiti sketchbook is a great for anyone who loves graffiti art, from beginners to professionals. It’s also ideal for students, teachers, artists, and anyone who enjoys drawing and painting. Order yours today and start creating amazing graffiti art!Features:8.5” x 11” sized pages89 blank white pages29 white brick textured pagesWhite paper 90grmPaperbackHigh-quality full-color Soft Matte cover
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65
Where's Banksy?: Banksy's Greatest Works in Context
Xavier Tapies
4.1
Wheres Banksy? fully captures the drama of this illustrious artist's exploits on the world stage with clever chronologically-arranged maps. The only survey that looks at Banksy's entire street art career, from his earliest works in 2002 through Dismaland and to the present, the book details his most significant works one piece at a time, with photos and in-depth analysis of the history of each work as well as its often-deeper meaning. A modern day Robin Hood, Banksy's public persona has grown to mythic proportions, making his actual identity irrelevant. And yet, he can be found in his art work that is recognizable and accessible stylized social commentary for the masses. This stunning new book is the ultimate introduction to the work of this brilliant artist and social pioneer.
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66
This Is Modern Art: A Play
Kevin Coval
4.1
A glimpse into the lives of anonymous graffiti artists that asks us to question the true purpose of art.
Graffiti crews are willing to risk anything for their art. Called vandals, criminals, even creative terrorists, graffiti artists set out to make their voices heard and alter the way people view the world. But when one crew finishes the biggest graffiti bomb of their careers, the consequences get serious and spark a public debate asking, "Where does art belong?"
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67
Getting Up: Subway Graffiti in New York
Craig Castleman
4.1
"Getting Up" is the term used by graffiti "artists" to describe their success in making their mark on the New York subway system. Through candid interviews, New Yorker Craig Castleman documents the inside story of the lives and activities of these young graffitists.
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68
Stencil Graffiti
Tristan Manco
4.1
The medieval world was a distinctive one, rich in change and diversity. This book brings together these disparate worlds to show one medieval world, stretching from Connacht to Constantinople and from Tynemouth to Timbuktu. This set of reconstructions presents the reader with the future of the medieval past, offering appraisals of the evidence and modern historical writing. Articles are thematically linked in four sections, exploring identities in the medieval world; beliefs, social values and symbolic order; power and power-structures; and elites, organisations and groups. This set of views from multiple perspectives conveys the liveliness of current approaches to studies in the field.
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69
Blank Comic Book Notebook: Create Your Own Story, Comics & Graphic Novels
The Whodunit Creative Design
4.1
Create Your Own Comic Book Today! Art Book and Sketchbook for Kids! Kids love making their own cartoons and comics. This Blank Comic Book Notebook will give them plenty of room to tell their stories. Filled with comic book templates of various styles, with over 100 pages, this book will keep budding artists busy for hours. Sized a bit larger than a normal comic book at 8.5" x 11" there's more room for them to immerse themselves in their own creativity. It's the perfect gift for the holidays as kids will have extra time to sit down and draw.
Full features include:
8.5 x 11 softcover notebook with just over 100 pages A short introductory cartoon comic that shares some tips on how to make an awesome comic book Example page at the back of the book showcasing some example word balloons and special effects Enough variety with 12 different unique grid panel layouts to write and draw their own stories Beautiful matte finish cover
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70
Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall
Banksy
4.1
The first incendiary collection of stencils and graffiti from Banksy, presented and bound in a handy pocket sized high quality format. Rarely have art and politics been put to such fine, and overtly public, use. Mix the irony and juxtaposition of John Yates with the beauty of the finest aerosol art, and you'll have some idea of how good this really is. The reproductions are interspersed with an excellent array of quotes, statements, letters and a beginners guide to painting with stencils. Very, very good.
A cool selection of classic skateboard stickers from five key skateboard brands.
This new book of fully peelable stickers, compiled by the Stickerbomb team, brings together the best skateboard stickers – both classic and new – from the 1970s to today.
From Jim Philip's legendary drawings for Santa Cruz, to the innovative, graphic–led creations from Girl and Alien Workshop, Stickerbomb Skate illustrates the central role that stickers have played in skate culture.
Including five legendary skate brands – Alien Workshop REAL Toy Machine Girl Santa Cruz
Also features interviews with key illustrators and artists; including Philips, Ed Templeton and Mike Hill; this is an indispensable collection for any skate obsessive.
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72
Streetopia
Rebecca Solnit
4.1
After San Francisco's new mayor announced imminent plans to "clean up" downtown with a new corporate "dot com corridor" and arts district--featuring the new headquarters of Twitter and Burning Man--curators Erick Lyle, Chris Johanson and Kal Spelletich brought over 100 artists and activists together with residents fearing displacement to consider utopian aspirations and plot alternative futures for the city. The resulting exhibition, "Streetopia," was a massive anti-gentrification art fair that took place in venues throughout the city, featuring daily free talks, performances, skillshares and a free community kitchen out of the gallery. This book brings together all of the art and ephemera from the now-infamous show, featuring work by Swoon, Barry McGee, Emory Douglas, Monica Canilao, Rigo 23, Xara Thustra, Ryder Cooley and many more. Essays and interviews with key participants consider the effectiveness of "Streetopia"'s projects while offering a deeper rumination on the continuing search for community in today's increasingly homogenous and gentrified cities.
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73
Banksy: The Man Behind the Wall
Will Ellsworth-Jones
4.1
While hiding from the limelight, Banksy has made himself into one of the world's best-known living artists. His pieces have fetched millions of dollars at prestigious auction houses. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his film Exit Through the Gift Shop. Once viewed as vandalism, his work is now venerated; fans have gone so far as to dismantle the walls that he has painted on for collection and sale.
But as famous as Banksy is, he is also utterly unknown—he conceals his real name, hides his face, distorts his voice, and reveals his identity to only a select few. Who is this man that has captivated millions? How did a graffiti artist from Bristol, England, find himself at the center of an artistic movement? How has someone who goes to such great lengths to keep himself hidden achieved such great notoriety? And is his anonymity a necessity to continue his vandalism—or a marketing tool to make him ever more famous?
Now, in the first ever full-scale investigation of the artist, reporter Will Ellsworth-Jones pieces together the story of Banksy, building up a picture of the man and the world in which he operates. He talks to his friends and enemies, those who knew him in his early, unnoticed days, and those who have watched him try to come to terms with his newfound fame and success. And he explores the contradictions of a champion of renegade art going to greater and greater lengths to control his image and his work.
Banksy offers a revealing glimpse at an enigmatic figure and a riveting account of how a self-professed vandal became an international icon—and turned the art world upside down in the process.
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74
Walls Notebook
Sherwood Forlee
4.1
These textured urban walls provide an interesting backdrop for notes, musings, drawings, doodles, and more. Indulge your inner graffiti artist - without the risk of jail time!
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75
Tattoo Re-Imagined Volume 1, 500+ Chicano Tattoo Designs, Tattoo Flash, and Tattoo Ideas: Chicano tattoo designs flashes ideas that will inspire your next Black and Gray Tattoo
G Ilie, G George Ilie
4.1
Tattoo Re-Imagined: Chicano Tattoo Designs- Comprehensive Collection**: Features over 500 original tattoo designs, flashes, and prints rooted in Chicano tattoo art.- Stunning Visuals**: 195 pages filled with captivating and meticulously crafted designs.- Essential Resource**: Ideal for tattoo enthusiasts, artists, and anyone seeking inspiration for Chicano-style tattoos.- Rich Heritage: Pays homage to the historical roots and cultural pride of Chicano tattoo art.- Iconic Imagery: Includes powerful Aztec warriors, intricate religious iconography, stylish lowrider cars, chola girls, and the timeless beauty of roses. Whether you're an experienced tattoo artist or simply passionate about Chicano culture, "Tattoo Re-Imagined: Chicano Tattoo Designs" is the ultimate guide to exploring and re-imagining this vibrant art form.
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76
This is Los Angeles
Estevan Oriol
4.1
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77
Urban Art Legends
KET
4.1
Renowned graffiti artist KET looks at 38 of the most influential urban artists from around the world
From being spray-painted onto walls and trains, to enjoying acclaim in galleries and museums, the graffiti movement has changed. Far from being viewed as mindless vandalism, graffiti, or urban street art, has become prized as a highly valued and socially relevant art form. Renowned graffiti artist KET selects 38 of the most influential and pioneering urban artists from around the world who have driven this transformation. Alongside selections of their artwork, KET explores their mediums, methods, and backgrounds, and why they've chosen to challenge classical ideas of art to convey messages about urban culture. From well-known names such as Banksy, Shepard Fairey, and Blek le Rat to superstars of the underground movement, these are artists who have moved far away from the cliched lettering and tags to develop individual styles that reflect and critique modern life. With photographs, biographies, and commentary by KET, this is the perfect companion for modern art fans who would like to learn more about their favorite street artists and discover new ones, and anyone wanting to learn more about this vibrant, exciting, and constantly evolving art form.
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78
Graffiti Lives: Beyond the Tag in New York's Urban Underground
Gregory J. Snyder
4.1
On the sides of buildings, on bridges, billboards, mailboxes, and street signs, and especially in the subway and train tunnels, graffiti covers much of New York City. Love it or hate it, graffiti, from the humble tag to the intricate piece (short for masterpiece), is an undeniable part of the cityscape. In Graffiti Lives, Gregory J. Snyder offers a fascinating and rare look into this world of contemporary graffiti culture. A world in which kids, often, shoplift for spray paint, scale impossibly high places to find a great spot to "get up," run from the police, journey into underground train tunnels, fight over turf, and spend countless hours perfecting their style. Over the ten years Snyder studied this culture he even created a few works himself (under the moniker "GWIZ"), found himself serving as a lookout for other artists engaged in this illegal activity, spent time in the train tunnels in search of new work, created a blackbook for writers to tag, and took countless photographs to document this world -- over sixty included in the book. A combination of amazing "flicks" and exhilarating prose, Graffiti Lives is ultimately an exploration into how graffiti writers define themselves. Snyder details that writers are not bound together by appearance or language or birthplace or class but by what they do. And what they do is reach for fame, painting their names as prominently as they can. What's more, he discovers that, though many public officials think graffiti writing will only lead to other criminal activity, many graffiti writers have turned their youthful exploits into adult careers -- from professional aerosol muralists and fine artists to designers of all kinds, employed in such fields as tattooing, studio art, magazine production, fashion, and guerilla marketing. In fact, some of the artists featured have gone on to international acclaim and to their own gallery shows. Snyder's illuminating work shows that getting up tags, throw-ups, and pieces on New York City's walls and subway tunnels can lead to getting out into the city's competitive professional world. Graffiti Lives details the exciting, risky, and surprisingly rewarding pursuits of contemporary graffiti writers.
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79
Million Dollar Vandal
Aka Projects
4.1
Million Dollar Vandal : The story of one of New York's most reviled citizens: a graffiti writer named Robert Morrissey, best known as DESA, the moniker that brought him the hate. There were writers who did more graffiti, but no one matched Desa when it came to bad luck: he was in the midst of a hard-luck life when he became the whipping boy of New York's law enforcement whenever it needed to make its graffiti crackdown visible. Desa's legal trials for graffiti made headlines: notoriety which Desa alternately relished and ran from. Million Dollar Vandal chronicles Desa's violent and tragic life, from his Bushwick childhood to his present day as a reclusive, unemployed man moving about his day-to-day life -- every bit of it punctuated with the graffiti that brought him fame and trouble. Presented by Also Known As, renowned for magnificent print, photographic, and production quality.
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80
Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society
John Law
4.1
A template for pranksters, artists, adventurers and anyone interested in rampant creativity, for years to come. Tales Of The San Francisco Cacophony Society tells the history of the most influential underground cabal that you have never heard of. Rising from the ashes of the mysterious and legendary Suicide Club, The Cacophony Society, at its zenith, hosted chapters in over a dozen major cities, and influenced much of what was once called the underground. Flash Mobs, Urban Exploration, and Culture Jamming are a few of the pop culture trends that Cacophony helped kick off. Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, Burning Man and Internet social networking powerhouse Laughing Squid were informed and inspired by Cacophony. The Burning Man Festival actually began as a Cacophony event as did the annual, and now world-wide SantaCon. Cacophony events could range from something as simple as climbing the Golden Gate Bridge or having a discussion over drinks about a movie seen together, to something as elaborate as The Atomic Caf� -- an event involving a hundred bedraggled "nuclear holocaust Survivors" mounting elaborate costumed rituals throughout the bowels of a massive abandoned tooth paste factory. Yes.... Cacophony was that strange. Cacophony's heyday was concurrent with the rise of the internet. The story of this group is of historical significance for this reason. Information about upcoming pranks, street theater and other events hosted by Cacophony was spread by paper flyers posted on telephone poles and left in coffee shops, by the Societies mailer "Rough Draft" and by word of mouth. Then, with the genesis of personal computing and social networking, the jokers, artists and troublemakers of Cacophony were among some of the first non-geeks to explore the power of this new and world changing way of communicating. Burning Man, Urban Exploration, flash mobs and the like were avenues of creativity with their roots in Cacophony, that spread like wildfire through the mechanism of these new communication technologies.
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81
Black&Grey Tattoo Designs: Over 700 Creative Tattoo Ideas to Inspire Your Next Bit of Body Art. Original, Modern Black and Grey Tattoo Designs for ... Tattoo Artists, Professionals and Amateurs.)
Tattoo Designs Publishing
4.1
Black & Grey Tattoo Design Book: 700+ Stunning Ideas for Your Next MasterpieceStop scrolling through endless, blurry online images and find your perfect tattoo today.Whether you are planning your very first piece, expanding a sleeve, or looking for premium reference material for your tattoo shop, this comprehensive design book is your ultimate source of inspiration.Inside, you will discover over 700 stunning, high-resolution designs in the timeless black and grey style. From delicate floral arrangements and precise geometric patterns to striking portraits and bold line art, this collection has something for every aesthetic.Find a design you love, take the book straight to your tattoo artist, and watch your vision come to life.Why this book is a must-have:A MASSIVE VAULT OF IDEAS: Over 700 unique, premium black and grey designs.DIVERSE ART STYLES: Features florals, portraits, geometric shapes, linework, and much more.READY FOR THE CHAIR: Perfect to use as exact templates or as a starting point for a custom piece.PROFESSIONAL OVERSIZED FORMAT: Printed on large 8.5 x 11 inch pages (21.59 x 27.94 cm) so you can see every single detail and shading technique.THE PERFECT GIFT: An essential addition to the coffee table or reference library of any tattoo lover or professional artist.FACILITY-FRIENDLY: Contains strictly zero nudity or adult content, making it safe and suitable for shipping to inmates (subject to individual facility rules).Your skin is a blank canvas, and this book gives you the exact inspiration you need to fill it.Scroll up and click "Buy Now" to secure your copy and start planning your next great tattoo!
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82
The Walls Have the Floor: Mural Journal, May '68
Julien Besançon
4.1
The graffiti of the French student and worker uprising of May 1968, capturing participatory politics in action.
Graffiti itself became a form of freedom. --Julien Besan�on, The Walls Have the Floor
Fifty years ago, in 1968, barricades were erected in the streets of Paris for the first time since the Paris Commune of nearly one hundred years before. The events of May 1968 began with student protests against the Vietnam War and American imperialism, expanded to rebellion over student living conditions and resistance to capitalist consumerism. An uprising at the Sorbonne was followed by wildcat strikes across France, uniting students and workers and bringing the country's economy to a halt. There have been many accounts of these events. This book tells the story in a different way, through the graffiti inscribed by protestors as they protested.
The graffiti collected here is by turns poetic, punning, hopeful, sarcastic, and crude. It quotes poets as often as it does political thinkers. Many wrote "I have nothing to write," signaling not their naivet� but their desire to participate. Other anonymous declarations included "Prohibiting prohibited"; "The dream is reality"; "The walls have ears. Your ears have walls"; "Exaggeration is the beginning of invention"; "Comrades, you're nitpicking"; "You don't beg for the right to live, you take it"; and "I came/I saw/I believed." A meeting is called at the Grand Amphitheater of the Sorbonne: "Agenda: the worldwide revolution." This was interactive, participatory politics before Twitter and Facebook.
Although the revolution of May 1968 didn't topple the government (Charles de Gaulle fled the country, only to return; in June, his party won a resounding electoral mandate), it made history. In The Walls Have the Floor, Julien Besan�on collected traces of this history before the walls were painted over, and published this collection in July 1968 even as the paint was drying. Read today, the graffiti of 1968 captures, in a way no conventional history can, the defining spontaneity of the events.
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83
Ultimate Graffiti Guide Book Part 1 - Fundamentals
Jon Grim
4.1
Learning graffiti has never been easier. This Book is a comprehensive guide to graffiti! We’ll cover topics never before discussed in graffiti, while we dive deep into the science of how this art form works.Book details:Covers All of Graffiti’s Fundamentals and Teaches Style, Contains Information NEVER Before Discussed in Graffiti and More150+ Pages of Information With Hundreds of ImagesContains Simple, Yet Detailed Information For New Graffiti Artists of All Ages and Drawing Skill LevelsHelps You Practice Your Drawing Skills and Become Confident With Your Artistic Abilities
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84
Tag Town
Martha Cooper, Tobias Barenthin Lindblad
4.1
Tags are designed street names, written in the public domain. They are one of the most despised phenomena since long hair on men. They have burrowed their way into the big cities of the world, working both to annoy and tell stories. Now, they tell the tale of how the biggest and most vital artistic trend of the late 20th century origi- nated among children and youths. Martha Cooper documented New York subway paintings in the book Subway Art (1984). But she most preferred tags, the bastard siblings of the pieces, because of their raw energy. Tags are the blue print and uncouth offspring of graffiti writing culture. Cooper went exploring, and found a gold mine just a few blocks from her home! The earliest tags in New York were developed in Washington Heights, North Manhattan, and ten years later, Martha was there with her camera. She documented backyards, bridge supports, parks and pedestrian tunnels with the precision of an ethnographer. The walls were still full of tags from the 60s and 70s, a forgotten gallery. The pictures have lain in Martha's photo archive since then. Featuring interviews with oldschool writers Part 1 and Snake 1, pioneers of the early 70s New York writingscene, and essays on tags and calligraphy, Tag Town is the first book to show early tags in their context. Even in the early 70s, all the basic forms that still appear in modern graffiti writers' work, were there. Tag Town is a lesson in reading tags for beginners, and an eureka moment for the experienced writer. Martha Cooper has documented hip-hop culture since 1980. She is the author of books such as Subway Art, Hip Hop Files, We B Girlz and Street Play.
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85
Sidewalk Canvas: Chalk Pavement Art at Your Feet
Julie Kirk-Purcell
4.1
In cities and towns throughout the world you may see an area of sidewalk decorated with chalk or pastels. This art form originated in Italy during the 16th century, with vagabond artists who painted religious pictures directly on the paved public squares, using chalk and charcoal. Thanks to the International Street Painting Festival in Grazie di Curtatone in Northern Italy, the art form has been revitalized, and festivals such as Absolut Chalk in Pasadena and the Italian Street Painting Festival in San Rafael, CA, attract up to 600 exhibitors and 60,000 visitors annually. Part folk art, part performance art, this fascinating genre, where chalk is substituted for paint and asphalt or concrete for canvas, is growing in popularity in the virtual world too, with online blogs and video streams celebrating the art.
Packed with vibrant examples from the author and other leading international street painters, Sidewalk Canvas includes magical 3-D illusions, original amusing twists on the old masters and works by artists famous in other media. In addition to a gallery of the best street painting from around the world, there are insights into how it is executed, where to find it, and how to create your own work. As well as appealing to practicing artists, art educators and the hundreds of thousands attending festivals worldwide, the book will also interest those commercial organizations seeking to commission street paintings for promotional purposes.
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86
How To Make Mandala Coloring Pictures?
Mike Chiang
4.0
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87
Graffiti Planet: The Best Graffiti from Around the World
KET
4.0
Graffiti Planet is a collection of work from various artists that celebrates the endless creativity of the medium, and of the artists themselves.
Graffiti or 'street art' has become a significant art form in the last twenty years and, ever controversial, has transformed urban landscapes all over the world.
Featuring 100 glossy photos of groundbreaking graffiti and including an introduction from Ket, a legend on the graffiti scene, Graffiti Planet is a great introduction and the perfect companion for anyone excited by this most vibrant and democratic of art forms. Graffiti Planet showcases work by the following artists among others:
Can2 - Munich Bates - Copenhagen Banksy - London Loomit - Germany CES?- The Bronx, New York Os Gemeos - Sao Paolo Sento - Hawaii T-Kid - The Bronx, New York
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88
Graffiti Art Sketchbook (Vol.1): Blackbook of Urban Spots for Street Artists Featuring Walls, Bridges, Shutters, Doors, Trains, and More (8.5x11” - Black & White)
Minelli Press
4.0
Bring your blackbook practice into real city spaces. Graffiti Art Sketchbook (Vol.1) gives you front-view, black-and-white urban canvases—walls, bridges, shutters, doors, train panels, cabinets, and more—so you can plan tags, throw-ups, straights, pieces, and full productions with true proportions. Each page is clean and text-free, printed in monochrome for crisp lines and bold fills. The 8.5” × 11” format leaves room for letters and characters, while the orthographic view keeps baselines level and spacing honest.This book works like a classic blackbook, and if you call it an environment sketchbook, you’re in the right place.Key features :Black & white urban canvases in true front viewRealistic surfaces: walls, bridges, shutters, doors, trains, cabinets, and moreLarge format 8.5” × 11” for letters, throw-ups, and piecesClean pages with no text—made for sketchingMarker-friendly tip: slide a blank sheet or thin cardboard behind the page
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89
Basquiat-Isms
Jean-Michel Basquiat
4.0
A collection of essential quotations and other writings from artist and icon Jean-Michel Basquiat
One of the most important artists of the late twentieth century, Jean-Michel Basquiat explored the interplay of words and images throughout his career as a celebrated painter with an instantly recognizable style. In his paintings, notebooks, and interviews, he showed himself to be a powerful and creative writer and speaker as well as image-maker. Basquiat-isms is a collection of essential quotations from this godfather of urban culture. In these brief, compelling, and memorable selections, taken from his interviews as well as his visual and written works, Basquiat writes and speaks about culture, his artistic persona, the art world, artistic influence, race, urban life, and many other subjects. Concise, direct, forceful, poetic, and enigmatic, Basquiat’s words, like his art, continue to resonate.
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90
Mascots & Mugs: The Characters and Cartoons of Subway Graffiti
David "Chino" Villorente
4.0
In the graffiti world it's the name that brings the fame, but what about the figural components of this urban typography? Some of the most iconic pieces in the history of graffiti have earned their place in the street art pantheon with the help of masterfully rendered figures that lend additional presence to these works. Mascots & Mugs, brought to you by the publisher of the best-selling sneaker encyclopedia Where'd You Get Those? is the first book to examine figurative elements in graffiti art: It traces the history of key characters from the earliest examples by writers such as Stay High, Cliff 170 and Blade, to those of later masters like Mode 2, Doze and Tack. Drawing inspiration from Saturday-morning television, printed comic strips and the dense urban landscape itself, graffiti writers created characters free from the constraints of their usual letterforms. The result is a host of outlandish visual sidekicks that, over time, have become so prevalent that any would-be king needs at least a few in his artistic arsenal. Filled with never-before-published photographs and rare artist interviews, this chronologically sequenced graffiti bible is a must-have reference work for anyone interested in cartoons, comics, graphic design or the myriad ways in which this self-taught urban street art has influenced today's contemporary art landscape. Also available in a deluxe, clothbound, slipcased limited edition with a signed screenprint of a classic "mug" from graffiti legend Doc TC5.
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91
Broken Windows: Graffiti NYC
James T. Murray, Karla L. Murray
4.0
This title gives voice to an art movement which is often misunderstood. In New York in the 1980s, graffiti moved from the subway trains to large walls, offering an opportunity for greater depth and complexity. Here, the artists themselves discuss this radical means of communication.
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92
Protest Stencil Toolkit: Revised edition
Patrick Thomas
4.0
Create unique protest graphics with the Protest Stencil Toolkit, revised and updated for modern-day activists.
Combine the 42 robust stencils, and the typeface, to create slogans and visual messages.
Includes symbols from a variety of important protest movements.
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93
Tagged
Mara Purnhagen
4.0
Can Kate Morgan stand up for herself—without being labeled a snitch?
Kate is just as confused as her best friend, Lan, when she arrives at Cleary High to find the building's been "tagged" with a life-size graffiti mural. Could the culprit be one of their friends or classmates? And is the kind-of-amazing creation really vandalism, or a work of art? She's tempted to stay out of it—mostly because, as the police chief's daughter, she's worried about being labeled a snitch. But when the same mysterious graffiti starts appearing throughout the state, putting more pressure on the authorities to catch the vandal, her investigative instincts kick in.
Now Eli, Kate's favorite coworker at the local coffee shop, is MIA. With Lan preoccupied with her own boy troubles, Kate needs to figure out some things on her own. Like why she can't stop thinking about Eli. And what she will do when all the clues about the graffiti point to someone she's close to…
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94
Compliments of Chicagohoodz: Chicago Street Gang Art & Culture
James "Jinx" O'Connor
4.0
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95
How to Draw Graffiti Style
Kevin Fitzpatrick
4.0
The books in the How to Draw series are especially designed for artists of all levels, beginner to advanced, who are looking to hone their skills in a specific style of artwork. The books are 6.5in x 8in, hardcover with an internal spiral binding so they lay open flat as readers follow the steps on their own canvas or paper. The books are beautifully illustrated and contain hundreds of colorful pieces of artwork, photographs, and helpful diagrams. Step-by-step instructions help guide artists through the learning process.
How to Draw Graffiti Style will not only teach you about how graffiti art is made, but will also take you through how the whole culture of graffiti art evolved, and how it remains vibrant and changing today. The graffiti scene has many codes, rules, and classic styles, passed down through generations of graffiti artists. Discover how letters have evolved from the early tag through to the bubble letter, and what we see today. Explore the possibilities with 3D graffiti, using shadow and depth to bring your work off the page, wall, or even the canvas. All aspects of modern-day graffiti art (including the popular stencil art) are explained in depth.
Everyone loves to draw, and graffiti is gaining momentum as a recognizable genre of art. Whether you want to graffiti on paper, on canvas, or on permitted walls, this is the book for you. Complete with easy to follow step by step instructions and expert hints and tips, you’ll be an urban art aficionado in no time.
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96
Keith Haring
Elisabeth Sussman, Keith Haring, Whitney Museum of American Art
4.0
In 1980, mysterious chalk drawings of simple outline figures began appearing on unused advertising space in New York City subway stations. Combining the appeal of Disney cartoons with the sophisticated primitivism of such artists as Jean Dubuffet, these underground artworks were bold, humorous, accessible, subversive - and the work of one man - Keith Haring. Over the next decade, Haring went on to create a body of work that would capture the energy and excitement of New York's brash street culture - and transmute punk, new wave, hip-hop, graffiti and break dancing into an instantly recognizable pop iconography. He frequently bypassed the gallery scene, preferring to address people directly through drawings and paintings in public spaces and with mass-produced items based on his designs. By the time he died of AIDS in 1990 he had become New York's most celebrated artist since Andy Warhol.
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97
All City Writers: The Graffiti Diaspora
Andrea Caputo
4.0
The title, All City Writers, describes a vast research on the Writing movement, particularly focusing on the process of its exportation from New York to all of Europe during the 80s. A first part of the research analyzes how graffiti in media such as movies, videos, magazines, and books from New York influenced the first European scene, which only took a few years to build up its own connections and styles from Scandinavia to the Southern Countries. International crews, fanzine networks, inter-rail travels are, among others, key-chapters in which writers have become protagonists. The whole project came out from the consideration that many stories lived by writers are just lost in time. Beside pictures of pieces, the adventures and sensations a writer lives through often just disappear, like many other types of oral culture. For that reason, theres the widest text contribution ever published in this field. All City Writers tries to document the evolution and the consequences of a countercultural phenomenon, which in the last few decades has provoked a change in the rules regarding aesthetics and communication in a modern day society. All City Writers for the first time reassumes the main facts / actors of the International Writing scene, offering an overview of the main European cities, directly compared with New York City. Main cities involved: New York City, US London, UK Bristol, UK Stockholm, Sweden Helsinki, Finland, Copenhagen, Denmark Amsterdam, Holland Rotterdam, Holland Hamburg, Germany Berlin, Germany Dortmund, Germany Munich, Germany Paris, France Zurich, Switzerland Basel, Switzerland Madrid, Spain Barcelona, Spain Milan, Italy Rome, Italy
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98
The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculinity and Identity in London and New York
Nancy Macdonald
4.0
This book is the most extensive contribution to our understanding of the graffiti subculture to date. Using insights from ethnographic research conducted in London and New York, this book explores the varying ways young men use graffiti to construct masculinity, claim power, and establish independence from the institutions which define, and often limit, them as young people. Forging a link between subcultural practice and identity construction, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in new understandings of youth and their subcultures.
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99
Graffiti Coloring Book
Uzi Wufc
4.0
In The Graffiti Coloring Book, sixty of Scandinavia's best graffiti writers have provided the outlines. You choose the colors. The Graffiti Coloring Book is as fun for children as adults. Get out your crayons and walk the path of the kings of graffiti.
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100
Anyone Can Learn Watercolor Journaling - Yes, You!: Easy Techniques for Drawing and Painting
Jolyn Parker
4.0
Start Watercolor Journaling Today! The simple technique presented in this fun-to-read book will have you drawing and painting quickly. No need to wait until you’ve had hours of training or years of practice to enjoy watercolor journaling. In this book you will learn how to: Recapture the natural joy of art experienced in early childhood Create colorful travel journals that will become treasured souvenirs and a delight to share Overcome the resistance of your inner critic that says you can’t draw or paint Here’s what people are saying about Anyone Can Learn Watercolor Journaling—Yes, You! “This book is both an educational and delightful read.”—Sharan Devoto “I love the sketches in this book and appreciate the easy instructions that go along with them.”—Karen Bates “What a fun and easy-to-read book. Makes it simple to add a bit of creativity to a journal.”—Soo Hyun Han NOTE: This book is NOT for the experienced artist. It is intended only for people who want to learn VERY basic techniques for drawing and painting.
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