Art Books: Explore the World of Graffiti & Street Art

Dan Witz is maybe one of the most powerful street artists on earth. Since the 70’s, the master of fine art and public interventions is active on the streets in New York and other US-American cities. In 1979, he started his first large scale street art project by painting over 40 birds in lower Manhattan. In 1994, he wheat pasted about 75 black silkscreens hoodies and in did these brutal but also amazing Dark Doings installations. ...

Everybody knows these popular Hello My Name Is stickers, which had their great time some years ago. In these days, Graffiti artists started to write there name tags on that more or less cheap sticking papers, begun to stick them up in the cities around the world and started in that way a new mass attack on lampposts, traffic lights, mailboxes, etc. In Name Tagging, graffiti photography legend Martha Cooper presents a dizzying array of Hello My Name Is stickers adorned with tags, the origin of graffiti and today’s street art cultures. Cooper’s introduction, artist interviews and photographs make clear how artists famed and anonymous take advantage of the accessibility and practicality of nametag stickers. ...

There are a lot of more or less great books about street art, graffiti and urban interventions out there. This April, another promising looking street art book will be published: “Street Art New York”! The 176 pages hardcover book, with its 200 color illustrations takes its readers on a trip through New York’s streets, showing impressions of latest artworks. “Helping you navigate this crush of creativity and D.I.Y. art-making, the authors take you on a fast sprint through the streets, along the waterways, on the rooftops, and up the walls of todays ever-morphing Street Art scene, as only New York can tell it. ...

When I visited Hamburg some days ago, I got a copy of the “Being Alex Diamond” art book by Jörg from the Heliumcowboys Art Space - Thank you for that! After I wrote that post about Alex Diamond’s Demon Circus exhibition in Barcelona, I’m a big fan of the style and the intentions behind the artworks: The Alex Diamond project clearly calls attention to the dangers of cultural myths and the process of constructing aesthetic consensus and value, it also makes a tender attack on the vacancy of celebrity culture and the market’s role in determining so-called quality. (Harlan B. Levey) ...

A month ago, I told you about that very interesting art book by king calligrapher Niels “Shoe” Meulman. Now it’s, in addition to the Modart No. 01, in my possession and I’m very happy about that! With prologues by John Langdon and Adam Eeuwens, who are internationally active graphic designers and typographers, the about 120 pages book impress with high-quality photographs of Shoe’s artworks as well as with some great digital vector artworks. ...

When I arrived back in Berlin yesterday from my Scotland trip, my postbox was full of new mails and packages, including the new best of Modart book called “Modart No. 01 - Forget Art: In Order to Feel it”! The 250 pages hard back book contains features about several urban artists, illustrators and photographers like JR, Os Gemeos, Adam Neate, Space Invader, Blu, Ruedi One and Mark Jenkins, organized by the categories Spy, Rider’s Ink, Illustrated Works, Inside, Show & Tell, Photo and Random. ...

“Pieces of Berlin” is the name of a nice photobook about Berlin. On 90 pages, the book shows with 30 color photos some unconventional views of Berlin, the city of abandoned houses and street art, and therefore the real beauty and variety. The book is composed of analog street photographs by Florian Reischauer and texts by Isobel Coquille and - because of the great success - actually available in its second edition. ...

Infamous street artist Banksy recently did an interview with the British newspaper Sunday Times, which - As you can read in the corresponding article - was made by e-mail. Banksy talks certainly about his “Exit Through The Gift Shop” street art documentary, why he “don’t makes as much money as people think”, why the “amount of security cameras” gets on his nerves and even whether he trained art formally at school… ...

Niels “Shoe” Meulman from Amsterdam has worked on perfect his dirty styled combination of calligraphy and graffit. Next month he releases his new book “Calligraffiti” on From Here to Fame Publishing. “Street-edge meets high-end design as artist Niels Meulman explores the contours of words as images in “Calligraffiti” - his hybrid art form which blends calligraphy and graffiti. He presents a wonderful interplay of contrasts with a series of fast phrases and upbeat witticisms in the form of captivating typographic masterpieces.” (press release) ...

In my opinion, you could identify a good bar or event location by its bathrooms. Not that I need to have a clean toilet - what I need are some dirty tags, sketches or slogans on the walls! And I think, that Mark Ferem thinks the same… Mark is the author of the first “Bathroom Graffiti” book, which presents on about 190 pages personal expressions inspired by privacy. *If you’ve ever used a public restroom, chances are you’ve read some bathroom graffiti, or at least noticed it. Often bawdy, funny and smart, sometimes illegible, it is a ubiquitous means of expression found across the world. ...