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Street Art in Berlin
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 25, 2022
One of my favorite things to do while living in Berlin was going on street art tours. Every time we had visitors we'd do that together and I loved learning about the ever evolving highlights, trends and features. Photographer Kai Jacobs does an amazing job of curating this series. Mine is Version 7.0.
March 4, 2015
Graffiti--the meaningful, transformative kind that almost always goes well beyond simple tagging--has long been a rather offbeat love of mine. I purchased this book in Berlin, after touring the East Side gallery and walking around several other neighborhoods in the city, trying to spot some of my favorite graffiti artists.
I love the way this book, which is in its sixth edition now, has evolved and updated as the street art in Berlin has. There’s something poignant about the fact that shortly after I bought this book, in December of 2014, the art pictured on the cover was destroyed by the artist himself, as a response to the gentrification that now threatens many of the more diverse and affordable districts in Berlin (including the building on which this cover piece was featured).
In the first pages of this book the author and photographer, Kai Jakob, explains a bit about the history of graffiti art—a tradition that has been around, essentially, even before writing itself. He presents the history of street art in Berlin, specifically; and then he explains the different creative forms graffiti art can take. The book is largely comprised of color photographs, and then towards the end the author beings to describe several of the more prominent graffiti artists working in Berlin today.
I’m happy I purchased this book, as a token of an art form I love, from the city in the world that I think celebrates this art form best, but I do wish the author had included a lot more writing about the various artists whose work is contained in these pages. Only about seven artists are featured, which seems like a relatively low number considering how many well-known graffiti artist have worked in Berlin recently, and especially considering how many have begun to bridge the gap between street art and gallery showings—contributing to both in a way that was once stigmatized by the street art community, but has become an increasingly common practice.
Overall a great book, I just wish there was more of it.
I love the way this book, which is in its sixth edition now, has evolved and updated as the street art in Berlin has. There’s something poignant about the fact that shortly after I bought this book, in December of 2014, the art pictured on the cover was destroyed by the artist himself, as a response to the gentrification that now threatens many of the more diverse and affordable districts in Berlin (including the building on which this cover piece was featured).
In the first pages of this book the author and photographer, Kai Jakob, explains a bit about the history of graffiti art—a tradition that has been around, essentially, even before writing itself. He presents the history of street art in Berlin, specifically; and then he explains the different creative forms graffiti art can take. The book is largely comprised of color photographs, and then towards the end the author beings to describe several of the more prominent graffiti artists working in Berlin today.
I’m happy I purchased this book, as a token of an art form I love, from the city in the world that I think celebrates this art form best, but I do wish the author had included a lot more writing about the various artists whose work is contained in these pages. Only about seven artists are featured, which seems like a relatively low number considering how many well-known graffiti artist have worked in Berlin recently, and especially considering how many have begun to bridge the gap between street art and gallery showings—contributing to both in a way that was once stigmatized by the street art community, but has become an increasingly common practice.
Overall a great book, I just wish there was more of it.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews