Street Art Book Review

Layered Realities: Exploring Martin Whatson’s “InsideOutsider” / Eva Marie Bentsen

December 12, 2023 Art Book Review, Artists, Street Art Book Review

Martin Whatson, a Norwegian stencil artist born in 1984, has carved out a distinctive niche in the contemporary and street art worlds. His journey from street art to international acclaim is a narrative of artistic evolution and the versatility of visual language. This book, written by art dealer and curator Eva Marie Bentsen, offers a comprehensive look at Whatson’s career, from his early fascination with graffiti to his current status as a celebrated fine artist. His education at the Westerdals School of Communication in Oslo laid the groundwork for a unique blend of graphic design and urban art, defining his approach to art-making.

Early Works and Influences

The initial sections of the book explore Whatson’s early period, where his experimentation with graffiti styles and stencil art began to shape his artistic voice. These early works reveal a developing style, marked by influences from notable artists like DOLK and Banksy. During this time, Whatson started to refine his distinct blend of political themes and aesthetic appeal.

Studio Canvases and Style Development

Readers can observe Whatson’s transition from outdoor walls to studio canvases through the book. You see highlights of his exploration of urban landscapes and decay, an ongoing theme in his work and part of the lingua franca of street artists worldwide. His artistic expression, once more heavily political, has evolved into a subtler form, still retaining some of its original edge. The featured studio works exemplify this shift, demonstrating his signature combination of urban elements with a more poetic narrative. The book showcases his venture into sculpture, which allows readers to see how his themes translate into three-dimensional forms, often reflecting his familiar motifs.

Collaborations and Diverse Artistic Dialogues

The book’s concluding section focuses on Whatson’s collaborations, highlighting his interest and ability to merge his artistic vision with that of others. These joint projects, featuring a diverse range of artists, illustrate Whatson’s adaptability and his commitment to the communal spirit of street art. with a wide audience, transcending traditional boundaries of street and fine art.

This is an insightful look into Martin Whatson’s artistic journey, showcasing how he has navigated the realms of street and fine art with his authenticity – an informative resource for those interested in the intersections of modern art, street art, and the dynamic process of artistic evolution.

The book is an overview of his career thus far. You may be familiar with him here because he has been a trusty recurring participant in the Nuart Festival, championed by Stavanger curator and art dealer Martyn Reed for a decade – exposing his work to an international art press and collection of academics, writers, fans, etc. This has contributed to his success and name recognition in certain circles.

MARTIN WHATSON: INSIDEOUTSIDER. Pitch Forlag. Norway.

Photographer Martha Cooper takes a photo of Martin with Jaime and Steve at the opening of his exhibition at Harman Projects on September 09, 2023, in NYC. (photo courtesy ©Hama Woods)

Alan Ket’s ‘The Wide World of Graffiti’: A Testament to the Art Form’s Global Impact

December 5, 2023 Art Book Review, Artists, Street Art Book Review

Graffiti artists often dismiss histories or narratives not of their own making, including those from their peers. This subculture, which has continuously evolved across different cities, time zones, decades, and languages over the past 60 years, is so rich in stories and counterstories that it might take another 30 years for the aerosol to clear and reveal the origins of these tales comprehensively. One unwavering truth prevails: if you weren’t there, in the same city, during the same era, didn’t grow up immersed in that urban environment, and weren’t marking the same train lines or recognized by local crews, your credibility is questioned, and the original graffiti artists (OGs) might disregard your story.

It’s meaningful when a book like “The Wide World of Graffiti” is authored by someone like Alan Ket, a native New Yorker from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who has firsthand experience writing on city trains. As a self-proclaimed graffiti nerd, historian of the movement, and co-founder of the Miami-based Museum of Graffiti, Ket brings a unique blend of metaphorical depth and frank authenticity to his writing. He skillfully combines scholarly insight and sociological context in his narrative, spotlighting selected kings and queens of the streets to further illustrate in their words details of the scene’s evolution and his informed insights to provide context.

Ket’s narrative style, marked by its directness and subtle wit, weaves through a tumultuous and ever-changing graffiti landscape across decades and cities. He captures the art form’s evolution, acknowledging its virtuosos, acolytes, critics, observers, and new entrants. His account includes appreciation for various influences, direct and indirect, allowing each shift in graffiti’s style and color to add to the overall narrative’s vibrancy. Ket augments the text with a wealth of illustrative photographs, showcasing graffiti and its extended family in both street settings and galleries, offering a comprehensive and exhilarating journey through the graffiti world.

Featuring an introduction by the Brazilian graffiti brothers OSGEMEOS, along with engaging profiles and interviews with notable figures such as Sane from SaneSmith, Hotboy Hert, DESA, and Doze Green, Ket allows graffiti’s history to unfold naturally in its distinctive and sometimes idiosyncratic way, enlightening the reader by describing its pathways. He showcases the global surge of interest as expressed through contemporary styles. He gives a quick class on graffiti’s influence in various artistic mediums, including on canvas and in public murals. Ket presents key examples without reducing them to mere tokens, offering a platform for authentic voices like Rime, MadC, Nani Chacon, Saber, and Jan Kaláb to elucidate further. Despite their diverse styles, each artist is united by the important contributions of graffiti culture in their personal histories and their subsequent artistic practices.

Ket’s holistic approach is inclusive and comprehensive, acknowledging related subcultures such as tattooing, skateboarding, and hip hop, while maintaining the focus on the writing culture that crafted a visual language for a youth movement that would eventually gain global prominence.

It’s his personal characterizations that ground the reader in the genuine beginnings of the movement in late 1960s/early 1970s Philadelphia and New York. “Week after week, more and more teenagers joined in, creating aliases and then going out and writing their names on the walls,” Ket recalls, depicting the grassroots creative spark that spread across streets and onto the sides of moving trains. Citing nearly 1,600 arrests of youth for vandalism in New York in 1972, Ket portrays an urban tableau rife with chaos, hunger, aspiration, beauty, and irony, remarking, “Little did they know that their mischievous actions were birthing what is arguably the world’s most popular art movement.”

In Ket’s capable hands, these stories are not only preserved but also eloquently conveyed.

Alan Ket: The Wide World of Graffiti. Monacelli Press / Phaidon. New York, NY.

The Wide World of Graffiti can be purchased directly from the gift shop at the Museum of Graffiti HERE

The Yok & Sheryo: “Yeahnahnesia” A Mystical Land and Guide

October 26, 2023 Art Book Review, Artists, Street Art Book Review

In the realm where imagination dances with audacity, Yok & Sheryo, the dynamic duo hailing from the crossroads of New York, Australia, and Asia, have conjured up a whimsical masterpiece, aptly titled “Yeahnahnesia.” Published in collaboration with the Art Gallery Western Australia, this book is a memoir and fantasy of creativity and storytelling that makes a reader question the boundaries of reality and fiction.

The Yok & Sheryo: *Yeahnahnesia A Mystical Land Somewhere In The Indian Ocean*. Vol 1. Published by Yok & Sheryo and The Art Gallery of Western Australia. 2566 AP / 2023.

Picture a tropical paradise, a place Google Maps forgot, where mythology, deities, philosophies, and unusual creatures roam freely. Yeahnahnesia, the brainchild of these intrepid artists, is a fictional island brimming with tales so rich that your skateboarding dreams will tip their hats in admiration. The burning questions of its existence and location will keep you up at night until you surrender to the allure of this enigmatic and chill place.

As you delve into the book’s 120 pages, you’ll be transported into an alternate dimension where art intertwines with narrative, and history plays a sly game of make-believe. The “Temple of Frivolous Wishes” at AGWA, Art Gallery Western Australia, Perth, is a mere glimpse of their artistic prowess. Bound in fabric with gold foil accents, this bound edition of 800 is a treasure.

They talk about creating and inventing belief systems based in fictional folklore, complete with talismans and totems, and temples. “It was just so fun.” Yok describes the show and the book preparations, “We’re creating these temples out of mostly plaster so people with have this feeling of a lost artifact created out of sandstone, which was inspired from our travels,” he says in a video about the project. “The color scheme for the show, Yeahnahnesia was based on the folklore that we’d written for the island, which is rich in iron ore. So that brings the red out. But there’s also a story based on the 12 dragons….”

Yok & Sheryo’s escapades have led them from the crazed and colorful streets of New York to the hidden gems of Yeahnahnesia. They’ve absorbed cultures, painted murals, and surfed waves, all culminating in their artistic vision of this exotic island. They’ve unearthed cultural artifacts, shared stories, and created a simultaneously fantastic and familiar world.

“Yeahnahnesia is a tropical island with the best lifestyle you could ever want or wish for,” explains Sheryo. “We spent three months in Australia working on the show, and we took over a warehouse. Yeah, it was the first time we got to make a lot of 3-D sculptures. You just get in a meditative mode, especially when I roll sausage rolls, and then you just wanna roll as many as possible in the shortest time possible.”

Their playful, freewheeling work has earned them a unique spot in the art world, where walls, galleries, and corporate giants have all been inspired by their creativity and its eclectic route to truth. “Yeahnahnesia” is more than just a book; it’s a portal to a place that blurs the lines between reality and imagination, a testament to the audacious spirit of Yok & Sheryo. A guidebook to the journey, you can let your mind wander through the lush landscapes and vibrant cultures of Yeahnahnesia, where the surf is perfect, the beers are cold, and peace, love, and relaxation are the day’s mantras.

Also included in this book are photos from their recent show featuring the “Temple of Frivolous Wishes” at AGWA, Art Gallery Western Australia, Perth.

Edition of 800, 17cm x 24.5cm, 120 pages
120gsm paper, fabric bound book with gold foil
Co-published with Art Gallery Western Australia and supported by Dept. of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries Australia
Designed by Michael Norman, edited by Isobel Wise

See our article about the exhibition here: “Yeahnahnesia,” “The Temple of Frivolous Wishes,” and Yok & Sheryo in Perth

PORK Left You A Note

February 13, 2023 Art Book Review, Artists, Street Art Book Review

New York’s PORK is one of the few fire extinguisher writers who reliably has can-control, or nozzle control, as the case may be. If you know your extinguisher tags, these are examples of fine penmanship. Additionally, his necessarily brief cursive bon mots are cryptically funny, even if you don’t know his intention.

PORK: *“I LEFT A NOTE”*. Published by Blurring Books NYC

In this new softcover of street photography, many of his rattled-looking words are framed in their natural/unnatural environment and given their own page, or spread. In the index, you may get an insight into what the artist was thinking by the title given to the corresponding pages in the body. You’ll also gain insight into the irreverence, tempered at times with exquisitely poised timing.

“Vote” was placed in Prospect Heights to remind folks of election day, which seems quite civic-minded. “Woke” appeared during the Black Lives Matter protests on the Bowery Wall. “Prey” is a sly indictment sprayed upon a church being converted into high-end condos. These messages look wild and unnerving, injecting a visual shock into an otherwise run-down or decaying lot or boarded-up window or upon a semi-trailer.

The cover is reserved for one such burst of springtime exuberance; the white trailer set against a blue sky and framed by a cherry tree with it light pink blossoms simply declares, “Lovely Day.” The index informs us that it is of course, the song that must be running through your mind by Bill Withers as the soft breeze caresses your cheek.

PORK – “I LEFT A NOTE”. The first edition published 2022 by @BLURRINGBOOKSNYC

“I LEFT A NOTE” is a 500-copy limited edition, and each copy is signed. You can purchase the book at BlurringBooks.com

Djerbahood 2: More of the Open Air Museum in Tunisia

January 18, 2023 Art Book Review, Artists, Street Art Book Review

The traditional architecture in the Medina Atiga may be what attracts you initially, but it is the 150 street artists who will keep you wandering through the maze of tiny streets. The outdoor curation of Djerba by Mehdi Ben Cheikh, a bi-national with a gallery in Paris, happened over the last decade among the sun-blasted domes, arches, and towers here.

Djerbahood 2. Albin Michel – Galerie Itinerrance

“Djerba was exceptionally well placed for an operation with worldwide impact.” says the visionary Cheihk in the newly released Part 2 of Djerbahood, “On this, the southernmost island of the Mediterranean, the climate is pleasant and temperate for more than half the year.”

In this village of Erriadh on the Tunisian island of Djerba, you are twenty-five kilometers from the airport, adjacent to a long shoreline of fine white sand, and officially walking inside a UNESCO World Heritage site. It also helps that here you’ll find palm trees, olive trees, figs, pomegranate, carob, apple, and apricot trees, crystal clear water, and a fairly mild climate.

“From my very first contact with the village and its inhabitants, I was persuaded that I was in the ideal place to launch an operation of this kind,” he says. “…The Djerbahood adventure had just begun.”

But aside from the hundreds of artworks in this outdoor museum, the new faces coming here also have infused the traditional community, businesses, and small industries. Mr. Cheihk spends some time detailing a tile business that has recreated itself with interesting new patterns and motifs and speaks of the newly engaged folks from the neighborhood who are proud of the artworks and ask for more when the originals have deteriorated.

It is an unusual project bringing street artists and muralists from 30 countries around the world, and the results have been enriching in culture and relationships. The unique atmosphere encourages unconventional artistic experiences, he says, stretching and blending new influences with the traditions of the area. It has become a laboratory of sorts where international meets contemporary.

Add Fuel. Djerbahood 2. Albin Michel – Galerie Itinerrance

Ardif. Djerbahood 2. Albin Michel – Galerie Itinerrance

BToy. Djerbahood 2. Albin Michel – Galerie Itinerrance

Cryptik. Djerbahood 2. Albin Michel – Galerie Itinerrance

David De La Mano. Djerbahood 2. Albin Michel – Galerie Itinerrance

Invader. Djerbahood 2. Albin Michel – Galerie Itinerrance

M-City. Djerbahood 2. Albin Michel – Galerie Itinerrance

Mohaned L’Gacham. Djerbahood 2. Albin Michel – Galerie Itinerrance

Teuthis. Djerbahood 2. Albin Michel – Galerie Itinerrance

Shepard Fairey. Djerbahood 2. Albin Michel – Galerie Itinerrance

Djerbahood 2. Ediions Albin Michel. Galerie Itinerrance. 2022

Bartek Swiatecki / Pener: Selected Works 15-21

December 3, 2022 Art Book Review, Artists, Street Art Book Review

A new book here features six years of selected works from a Polish graffiti writer, muralist, and professor of art and painting at a secondary school in his hometown of Olsztyn, Poland. He reckons that his life is one of ‘Planned Freestyle,’ meaning that having structure imposed upon him is very helpful in focusing his creative mind. You may quickly appreciate this characterization if you know any artists.

Bartek Swiatecki / Pener. Selected Works 15 – 21. Printed in Poland © Bartek Swiatecki

The collection of selected works here by Bartek Swiatecki is as luminous and optically rewarding to the viewer as they are opaque to the mind and stirring to the heart. With prolific and gently evolving abstractions in movement, you can see an artist at work, at play, and at his personal best – topping his previous work. The grandson of another painter and professor (of philology), Miroslaw Swiatecki, and the nephew of a famous painter and animator, Marek Swiatecki, perhaps it was only a matter of time before this 90s graffiti writer moved into more formal practices on canvas and walls.

In an in-depth interview, Pener reveals his sometimes complex feelings about the label of street artist, almost as if it diminishes his abilities and craft.

“Almost all of my friends I paint with are graduates of art faculties at universities or academies; most of them are architects or graphic designers,” he says. “Each of us works hard, so I get angry sometimes when we are labeled street artists because it is a huge simplification.”

The sentiment rings true, although we have never had anything but respect for street artists, regardless of their formal training. We witness a struggle for definitions at nearly every juncture along this graffiti/street art/fine art/mural art/contemporary art continuum.

In the end, the work speaks for itself, as this book can attest.

Bartek Swiatecki / Pener. Selected Works 15 – 21. Printed in Poland © Bartek Swiatecki

Pattern Recognition: Scott Albrecht “In Time”

October 19, 2022 Art Book Review, Artists, Street Art Book Review

Color-blocked basketball courts appreciated from a plane, cheerful abstract murals for restaurants, hotels and cafes, and massive wood collages comprised of assembled pieces that are each finished before joining. What do these expressions of artist Scott Albrecht have to do with one another? If you study the patterns, in time, you will see.

A handsome cloth-covered hardcopy of works by the Gowanus, Brooklyn-based public/studio artist presents a selection of works from 2017-21 that have a rational color theory, smoothly dynamic geometries, and a soothing certitude in their complexity. Spotlighting public art projects, studio processes, exhibitions in New York and LA, and his residency at Hyland Mather’s place in Portugal, the collection is refined yet human.

In his description of his work, Albrecht is focused on the process as much as the product. “Most of my works are made up of a collection of pieces that go through a series of steps before they’re

assembled. Any single step per individual piece doesn’t take long–laminating, sanding, painting-but if a work has a couple of hundred pieces, and all those pieces go through the same process, time feels less linear and more compounded as I work through the steps.”

Together these steps appear to be a decoding mechanism that is necessary to understand fully. “While the work itself may be speaking to a single idea, it’s made up of a collection of individual elements coming together to form the whole,” he says. “I often equate these individual pieces to the micro-experiences we encounter that inform our relationship to an understanding.”

First encounters with Albrect’s work are gripping and calming – a deliberate collection of shapes and hues arranged in a way that is not readily apparent. It’s all about pattern recognition, says David Pescovitz, a research director at a think tank and co-editor of a tech/culture Web magazine. He writes the introduction to the book and tells us that the works are meant to be meditative, a brain exercise and visual riddle that, once solved, is rational.

“We’re so practiced at seeking patterns – searching for structure in the flood of signals coming our way, connecting the dots, trying to make sense of, well, everything–that we’re usually not aware we’re doing it.” Sighting neuroscientists and various peer review journals Pescovitz makes his case, and you are inclined to go back through the pages and let your eyes glide, parry, sense, and decode the patterns’ greater logic.

In time, you will.

Scott Albrecht: In Time. Click HERE for information about purchasing this book.

“Life’s A Mission… Then You’re Dead”: REVS, XSOUP, ARBOR and 100 Graff Writers in Their Own Words

September 5, 2022 Art Book Review, Artists, Street Art Book Review

Famed graffiti writer REVS detailed many an illegal ‘mission’ in his first self-published opus – the caveat is you needed to go underground in the New York subway tunnels to read about them. That was a few decades ago but even today when certain train lines are stalled between stations, which happens less frequently than it did in the ragged wild 1970-80s when many New York graffiti writers like REVS began, passengers can look out the window and read a portion of a diary entry. Over time people searching for these works discovered that this artist turned out to be a writer in more than one sense with his self-aware observations, opinions, memories, and aspirations inscribed in a personal/public voice along darkened subterranean passageways. Prolific and determined, he is credited with eventually some 230+ entries on walls that appeared during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Each are now a series of moments frozen in time, receding into New York and graffiti history.

REVS, XSOUP & ARBOR. *“Life’s a Mission…Then You’re Dead”*

Today the writer expands his reach, compiling with XSOUP and ARBOR the stories of many graffiti writers into a bound volume that will become an instant classic in the largely anonymous and underground realm of practitioners as well as with the growing cadre of researchers, academics and historians studying graffiti/street art/urban art today. With this new passion effort by REVS and a small team, these stories are preserved and documented, ensuring a greater understanding and appreciation for the interconnected/alienated paradox of the graffiti writer’s life and practice.

‘We preserved each individual’s truths, opinions, exuberance, pride, joy, and grudges in an effort to depict the gritty complexities of this scene we inhabit.’

Reason To Be Cheerful. Harlem, NYC. 1988. REVS, XSOUP & ARBOR. *“Life’s a Mission…Then You’re Dead”*. (photo © Matt Weber)

Author and REVS documentarian Freddy Alva below tells us about the upcoming small-run book release that has become a hot ticket for the New York graff (and street art) scene this week.

There’s a book release in Brooklyn on Saturday, September 10, celebrating ‘Life’s A Mission Then You’re Dead’; a comprehensive 510 pages book of blood, sweat & tears-soaked stories by 100 NYC Graffiti writers. REVS and XSOUP, with help from ARBOR, compiled this loving insiders’ oral history of an idiosyncratic street culture that few are privy to.

From the introduction:
‘The history of writing, style writing, or graffiti, is brief but nebulous. Generations turn over every couple of years, scattered across the city’s many neighborhoods and extending to most places on earth. The histories of these small, fluctuating groups are mostly recorded in memory and recounted through word of mouth—some to larger audiences and some reaching only a select few. Outsiders curious about writing have been responsible for much of its documentation… The voices of many writers could together offer a more intricate, nuanced view of the world of writing… We preserved each individual’s truths, opinions, exuberance, pride, joy, and grudges in an effort to depict the gritty complexities of this scene we inhabit.’

Each cover is individually drawn by REVS with images by NYC street photographer Matt Weber aka MALTA. Book design is by Eric Wrenn with editorial assistance by Polly Watson. This is a self-published endeavor with no online link to order at the moment, limit one copy per customer and cash only at the release event 11-6pm on September 10 at: Low Brow, 321 Starr St Brooklyn, NY 11237

Sean Pace Smoking. 1989. REVS, XSOUP & ARBOR. *“Life’s a Mission…Then You’re Dead”*. (photo © Matt Weber)

The following writers have stories in the book:

VINNY 3YB, RIFF 170 INDS, REMO BTB, SKEME, TAP, PEAK VIC, BONES, JESTER 1, FALSE, ALL JIVE 161, DESA MTA, LASK V05, VFR, CHAIN 3 TMT, EGOR, P13 TMD SS CW, YES 2, RD 357, QUIK, DELK TST, NOXER DOD, EKO TKC, BRAZE 1 BC TF5, MISS 17, TATU XMEN, DUKE 9 TOP, HOY 56, VIL XBS, PJAY, BH ONE TB, DUEL MCI RIS, JOE 188 / ROCKET, TRAP IF, SNAKE 1, XSOUP, CHINO BYI, JEST TVT, CHRIS 217, BAN 2 OTB/ DELI 167, CECSTER, STAK, FEC TFV, EZO CUKILLZ, COMET 1 TC5, KET ONE, BOOTS 119, JICK, GIZ MTA, PART ONE TDS, MAP, KAVES, TR 3 “THE RICAN” DTA, SP ONE, CES, DINK PBS, LSD ॐ, KROOK TBK, SHARP, PK, SMITH, MR. R MOD, ROGER, RENKS, TKID 170, KEV TM7, ANT, REVOLT, CYCLE, CRIME 79, DUMAR M NOV, NET, DERO TFA, SKUF YKK, TRIKE GND, STAFF 161 TED, CORE 2 IMOK, SONIC BAD, SADE TCM, TRACY 168, RATE TV, BOE RTWOW, DEMO TPA, TYKE/TIKE, KIT 17 MGS, HOW/NOSM, DJ NO XMEN, SPAR 1, CAVS SV, STRIDER BC, SES DOG, FLASHER, BUTCH 2, SERIF, INCA ONE, SANESMITH, PEO SIS, ANSO.

MadC: Solemn Codes of Graffiti Transformed from “Street To Canvas”

July 9, 2022 Art Book Review, Artists, Review, Street Art Book Review

You hope for it, but nothing is guaranteed. Transitioning from being an artist with a respected, lauded practice of graffiti/street art to a booming professional career on canvas is not a clearly defined route. Although many have tried, are trying right now.

What does it take, you ask? A potent mix of talent, luck, fortitude, applied effort, guts, and a willingness to change one’s approach if necessary, as necessary. In our experience, the last item proves to be the most challenging.

Yo, but Mad C is mad talented.

MadC – Street To Canvas. Heni Publishing, London.

She’s made it a dedication to studying and learning the craft, fine-tuning the skills, practicing, perfecting, and persevering. All of those qualities will give you a great measure of personal satisfaction even when it doesn’t land you a big bank balance. In the case of MadC, internalizing the practices and codes of graffiti that originated with the 1960s/70s graffiti writers was core – imprinted her creative DNA forever – even though her first attempt to write was not until 1995 in Germany.

It’s all here, in “Street to Canvas” and in the introduction by author Luisa Heese, who strikes a confident balance with biographical information and aesthetic description – all placed in context with MadC’s formative culture of graffiti. You track how she moved from apprentice to mastery of the vaunted styles and family of idioms broadly defining graffiti and street art. As her methods, techniques, and visual language evolved and sharpen, a clarion voice rises above it all.

We each turn of the color-drenched plates in this hardcover tome you see a boldly deconstructed freedom with forms that eventually takes flight from the moorings. The planes and shapes begin floating above, below, and over one another, finally cavorting with and supercharging the whole. It is an ever more complex process that ultimately creates deceivingly simple-looking, balanced compositions. If you would like to see the progression of an artist’s professional practice, it’s here for you without reading a word.

If you peruse the texts, you are rewarded with necessary, dense, and colorful prose. You learn about the utter tenacity and whole-hearted devotion that brought this woman, now only mid-career after such a prodigious run, to the gallery, to private collections and institutions.

One centerpiece of the retelling are the pages devoted to the 700 Wall she painted in Peissen, Germany in 2010. Only 15 years into the game by that time, MadC knocked out the entire glossary of graffiti, even hinting toward our mural-filled present in a massive timeline. With this aerosol autobiography she presents her story with a dramatic psychological and emotional rendering; this colossus wall of dreams and nightmares. It an adventure filled projection of the inner life of an artist in this way is unusual for such a secretive subculture. Still, the strikingly illustrative story reveals the codes of the culture that formed her, told with over-shadings of personal aspiration, disappointment, fear, and grit.

The book contains her own recounting of this passion production;

“Some days I went up and down the ladder more than 500 times; fell off the ladder 4 times; counted in days, I painted more than months every day at least 10 hours; l used 1489 cans; 158
different colours; 600+ caps; 3 different kinds of caps, 100 liters primer; 140 liters exterior paint; painted at temperatures from +2C° to +38C° in the sunshine, rain, storms, day and night; painted my biggest and smallest piece so far and overall painted my name far more than 100 times on this wall.”

The contribution of this storytelling to the ‘scene’ informs us all. Completed more than a decade ago, the opus wall foreshadows where she travels next, personally and professionally. Seeing her massive murals completed in cities around the world since then you can appreciate her prophetic quality as well. Author Ms. Heese helps to draw it all into view often throughout “Street to Canvas”, including this time:

“There is no better way to describe the magnitude of The 700 Wall in how the worlds of graffiti, street art, and contemporary visual arts should or should not be related to one another, MadC crosses the boundaries of genres and discourses, the rules of milieus and aesthetic conventions, with charming ease to create a distinctive work that exists in between.”

Martha Cooper and Roger Gastman Release “Spray Nation”: “Subway Art” on Steroids

June 18, 2022 Artists, Book Review, Street Art Book Review

Subway Art on Steroids: Spray Nation Sorts Through Mountains of Kodachromes

*Spray Nation* by Martha Cooper and Roger Gastman, with a foreword by Roger Gastman and essays by Steven P. Harrington, Miss Rosen, Jayson Edlin, and Brian Wallis.

Page after page of golden NYC hits from the Martha Cooper archive; this new hardcover tome expands the galaxy for fans and academics of that amber-soaked period when it seemed like New York was leading a Spray Nation of graffiti for cities across the country. Known for her ability to capture graffiti writers’ work in its original urban context, Ms. Cooper once again proves that her reputation as the documentarian of an underground/overground aesthetics scene is no joke.

With an academics’ respect for the work, the practice, and the practitioners, Cooper recorded volumes of images methodically for history – and your appreciation. With the vibrant and sometimes vicious city framing their pieces, an uncounted legion of aerosol-wielding street players raced city-wide at top speed, ducking cops and cavorting with a confident abandon in the rusted and screeching steel cityscape. By capturing these scenes without unnecessary editorializing, Cooper gives you access to the organically chaotic graffiti subculture on the move at that moment – directly through her unflinching eyes.

*Martha Cooper: Spray Nation*. Signed Limited Edition Box Set. Published by Beyond The Streets/Roger Gastman

Culled from thousands of her Kodachrome slides from the early 1980s, the celebrated photographer and ethnologist worked with American graffiti historian Roger Gastman over many months during the initial Covid period to select this rich collection of images of tags, walls, and pieces. Each turn of the page more profoundly deepens your understanding of the graffiti-writing culture Cooper captured with Henry Chalfant in their book Subway Art nearly forty years ago. That clarion call to a worldwide audience took years to reverberate and shake culture everywhere. With time that book became the standard root documentation for what many see as the largest global democratic people’s art movement in history.

A smartly laid-out and thick volume (as well as its “Outtakes” collection), the high-quality printing and spare design hew to the photographer’s reliably straightforward approach, preferring to let the photos tell the story. From this perspective, Spray Nation is likewise a sleeper; We’ll probably only wholly appreciate its pivotal value and cultural importance with time.

Martha Cooper: Spray Nation. Signed Limited Edtion Box Set is published by Beyond The Streets. With a foreword by Roger Gastman and essays by Steven P. Harrington, Miss Rosen, Jayson Edlin, and Brian Wallis. Click HERE to purchase the book.

Kurt Boone Shares the Jersey City Mural Festival in Print

April 20, 2022 Art Book Review, Artists, Book Review, Street Art Book Review

Almost a year ago, the Jersey City Mural Festival 2021 was launched. We covered it extensively for you here, here, here, and here on BSA.

Poet, urban author, photographer, and longtime NYC messenger Kurt Boone was there too, camera in hand and ready to record the action of the artists getting up on walls and meeting the public. Kurt throws himself into the scene and knows how to navigate while people are enjoying the atmosphere of creativity all around. With his knowledge of the street capturing graffiti, urban cycling, street photography, skateboarding, and busking, you know that his shots are on point.

Instead of uploading everything to a social media platform, Boone asked his friend Anthony Firetto to help lay out his photos to create a book. This is a genuine work of the heart – a self-published hefty book that captures a moment in time, the various players and styles, and a flashpoint in the development of Jersey City as it continues to change.

Congrats to Mr. Boone for putting this together and thanks to him for sharing it with us and BSA readers. See more about Kurt Boone and his impressive work HERE.

Robbie Conal: Politics & Blasphemy, Streetwise Caricatures for 3+ Decades

April 14, 2022 Art Book Review, Artists, Street Art Book Review

The political caricature is a treasured form of public discourse that still holds as much power as it did when we relied on the printing press. Able to express sentiment and opinion without uttering a syllable, the artist can sway the direction of conversation with skill, insight, and humor. Artist Robbie Conal has built a career from visually roasting the most sebaceous of our various leaders in the last few decades, often bringing his posters to the street and installing them in advertisers’ wildposting manner.

With the briefest of texts, slogans, or twisted nicknames, he reveals the underbelly as a face, dropping expectations into the sewer. If it were as simple as a political party, one might try to dismiss his work as only partisan. But Conal’s work functions more as an ex-ray, and frequently the resulting scan finds cancer.

In this newer book by author G. James Daichendt, EdD, who has written previously about Kenny Scharf and Shepard Fairey and in The Urban Canvas: Street Art Around the World (Weldon Owen, 2017), Conal is thoroughly recorded, examined, and explained. A street artist, among many other things, Daichendt calls Conal an “LA fixture and someone who is universally respected for the passion and vitality that he has brought to his work as an artist and teacher for several decades.”

Chapters of Conal’s interests and opinions are thoughtfully compiled and laid out, the artist seemingly never out of a fresh supply of political figures to skewer. As an object lesson, his practice is what draws him near and dear to the part of the street art community who uses the streets to communicate, advocate, and rebuke the hypocrisies in culture and politics

“I vividly remember the first time I saw Robbie Conal’s art because it felt like the exact thing I was meant to see but didn’t realize it until I experienced it,” says Shepard Fairey in his foreword. In his description, one can see that this artist has influenced Fairey, among others, but particularly.

“From that moment of discovering Robbie’s work forward, I had a clearer vision of what art could be… A poster on a corner utility box caught my eye … it was an image of Ronald Reagan on a bright yellow background with bold type that said CONTRA above and DICTION below. Then, a block later, I spotted another one. Now I was on the lookout, and the Contra-Diction posters seemed to be on every corner,” Fairey says. “This Contra-Diction poster spoke to me as a communiqué from a truthful voice of the people.”

High praise indeed.

ROBBIE CONAL / STREETWISE. 35 YEARS OF POLITICALLY CHARGED GUERRILLA ART. By G. James Daichendt. With a foreword by Shepard Fairey. Published by Schiffer Publishing LTD. Atglen, PA

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