Street Art in the Counter Culture

by Gary Shove (compiler)

Not to be filed under history, photography, design or non-fiction, as it contains outright lies and outrageous subjective opinion, this book is definitely about street art. It is also about now. Fungus grows on your collected wild-style pioneers. Vile passions rage between old schools and new. Stuff flies out from under the hammer at auction houses and property developers fund street art shows to liberal press fanfare. Oh, and Banksy hits the West Bank. Is anyone taking this thing seriously? Should it be taken seriously? Is it all just an immense daisy chain of poker faces, irony and mind games? Brilliant images of graffiti collected from all over the world and preserved here before the legions employed to destroy them and chip them off the walls. This is art driven by existential hunger, art that attacks you only if you are lame, art that inspires mystery and creativity. 11 Spring St NY was a much-loved site that became a graffiti landmark. Before it was redeveloped it inspired acts of love and Lou Reed made it the subject of a poem and Untitled preserves it in all of its glory. Includes works by Banksy, Faile, Dface, Swoon, Bast, Blu, Blek Le Rat, Obey, Dolk, Eine, Gaia, Elbowtoe, Hush, Copyright, Mir, Dan Witz, Space Invader, Armsrock, Doze Green, Know Hope, Skullphone, WKInteract, Skewville, Borf, Ame72, Sam3, Eelus, Miss Bugs, Rene Gagnon, The London Police, Michael De Feo and many more.

Genres: Art, Street Art, Nonfiction

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Carla Krueger]

"So the kid comes home with his first pay cheque from a guerrilla street art auction at Christie's and his dad sits him down, you know, for 'the talk'. He starts in with 'Son I'm proud of you but you got to promise me this. Whatever you do with this talent, even if you find yourself starving in a squat in Leytonstone, don't take a job in advertising. I'm begging you.'"

Hugely into street art and the counter culture so this is a feast-for-the-eyes book I wish I'd bought and not just borrowed from the library. (Renewal time!) Anyway, it's heavy, square and pointy and hardly worth carrying around unless you've got a rucksack, but I did anyway because I enjoyed browsing through it so much. It gave me a buzz knowing I could dip in and see something cool. I kept opening it up and trying to get the miserable office set on the train (who looked like they needed a good dose of spray can art) to look over and spot the rebellion. You never know, might spark a mini-revolution.

Full to the binder with drop-dead imagery and inspiring quotes, the book explains that graffiti started as "graffoxing" – a mixture between graffiti and boxing – where combatants would tag their name on their opponent's bodies using a marker pen during a bout. The themes in the book range from subversive and funny to extremely poignant messages about peace and humanity, as you'd expect from the likes of Banksy and co, who manage to incorporate fun and seriously important issues into their work, catching us at every emotional level.

I thought fiction books were the key to challenging opinion and communicating strong messages. Well, they are for sure, but street art, set out in public for all to see, like the stuff displayed here, is a close contender. And I agree: "The city is more vibrant if you speak to it."

[Arjen]

this is a good book. But the texts in between the images annoyed me a lot. They are just not on the same level as the imagery.

So 2 stars for the text, 4 stars for the rest. Be smart, buy the book and only watch the images.

[locrian]

Pretty cool book, but once I looked through everything, I didn't feel the need to look again. Don't bother buying it, just look through at the store. However it makes a nice coffee-table book or a unique gift.

[Jannah]

the words were just as important as the imagery depicted <3

[محمد الهاشمي]

A beauty. You just can't get enough. Author's selection reflects great taste