All posts tagged: Street Art Book Review

RUN: “Time Traveller Artist Man” Tells All With His Hands

March 8, 2017 Artists

“Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.”
Carl Jung

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London. UK. 2016

The founder of analytical psychology would have looked at the hands of RUN and perhaps understood more about his lifelong psychological process than the average intellect, and yet seeing RUN’s carefully formed people on the street captivates your imagination as well.

These are the dreams he creates with his expressive hands, conscious or unconscious features that over time have developed into archetypes to be combined, adorned, alone, and recombined. Not surprisingly, his people often have a grasp, a hold, a flair for the five fingered gesture as well.

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London. UK. 2016

His graffiti days as a teen in the 1990s were formative, not least because after tagging he discovered his passion for the figurative and his enthralling respect for the materials of art making. It also helps that his outgoing personality helped him mix easily with peers on multiple secretive artistic escapades.

When you see the list of his compatriots it occurs to you that RUN had no choice but to be astounding. It also occurs to you that Italy has produced many of the best quality and imaginative, innovative Street Artists. “At the beginning of 2000 we started a sort of Italian school of underground muralism,” he says of his colleagues Blu, Ericailcane, Dem, Hitnes, Allegra Corbo, 2501, Basik and Moneyless. The muralism continues, and some of these names are possibly walking toward canonical.

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London. UK. 2016

The writer and Street Art authority Tristan Manco helps capture the significance of this person’s journey;
“Part travelling diary, part monograph, Time Traveller Artist Man charts the triumphs and tribulations of an imaginative soul with a passion for travel, whose worldwide voyages have become a catalyst to create art that is elemental and playful, with the ultimate goal of engaging with people from all walks of life.”

On the occasion of his first serious monograph, the artist has taken the time to point you to his studies abroad in a solid tome published by Unicorn. In studio you contemplate the tools, in the street you contemplate the technique.

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London. UK. 2016

In his wall painting travels, which include The Gambia, Senegal, UK, Poland, Shenzhen, Croatia, Morocco, and many cities in his home country you see the nature and the wisdom of Giacomo Bufarini’s people – and his regard for them lies in the pattern, the abstraction, the gesture.

He cannot stay still for long, his subconscious and his dreams are full of movement. Thus, RUN. There is too much to see, too much to think about, too much to respect and explore. Rather than talk about it, his hands will tell you all you need to know.

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London. UK. 2016

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London, UK. 2016

RUN Time Traveller Artist Man is published by Unicorn Publishing Group. London, UK. 2016

“It does not suffice in all cases to elucidate only the conceptual context of a dream content.
Often it is necessary to clarify a vague content by giving it a visible form.
This can be done by drawing, painting, or modeling.
Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.”
Carl Jung

Buff Monster says “Stay Melty”

February 18, 2017 Artists

Paint drips and ice cream drips: What flavor would you like? We have strawberry, cherry, coconut…

Buff Monster Stay Melty Gingko Press. Berkeley, CA. 2015

If you haven’t seen Buff Monster and his melty crew on walls in the mid-twenty-teens then you have been looking at the sidewalk for loose change and lost earrings too much. Look up (!) on multiple walls all across the city and your find his friendly quirky sweet creamy characters cavorting and playing and melting together.

He and his fantastic army of ice cream scoops with surreal imaginations and likeable character anomalies have traveled worldwide of course; in multiple languages and on a variety of toys, posters, statues, garments, stickers and collectibles and even a select edition of Garbage Pail Kids cards called The Melty Misfits.

Buff Monster Stay Melty Gingko Press. Berkeley, CA. 2015

Pink dominates the palette and fantasy denotes the worldview for this brightly quirky hard driving globe-trotting Hawaiian native, with Buff himself tirelessly promulgating his little friends into your life and perhaps helping to take things a little less seriously for a moment, and reminding you of your childhood fun times.

Stay Melty is his hard-bound pictorial collection of three years of all action, creation, discipline, collaboration, and production, with Buff giving you an inside view of the pure glamour that goes into becoming a successful and recognized street/fine/commercial artist today. Hint: It’s about the time-honored practice of hustling, people. Also, ice cream.

Meet the man and see his show “Melt With Me” right now in Manhattan.

Buff Monster Stay Melty Gingko Press. Berkeley, CA. 2015

Buff Monster Stay Melty Published by Gingko Press. Berkeley, CA. 2015

New Yorkers can see the pop up show Buff Monster has today in Manhattan at 168 Bowery.

Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

“Shoe” is His Middle Name: New Book by Niels Shoe Meulman

February 1, 2017 Artists

“They both see words as images,” says Shoe about graffiti writers and Medieval scribes in a 2013 interview with the BBC. His latest tome extrapolates this reverence for the letterform, an obsessive repetitive family of gestures, now often abstracted, that the artist first stumbled upon as a pre-teen in the late 1970s. Since those days he became known as graffiti artist, painter, designer, writer, calligrapher. Here is where it comes together.

Niels Shoe Meulman Shoe Is My Middle Name Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam 2016.

“Shoe is My Middle Name” is the fourth publication by Niels Shoe Meulman and one that expands, amalgamates, solidifies his influences, mistakes, discoveries; forging a unique voice that is his own. Sometimes identified with Calligraffiti, but there is so much more to it; now the smudge and the smoke and the splatter has lead him in other directions, from supple and savvy wrist turning small scale to full-body massively immersive gestural painting.

Whether it is a push broom on a roof or a brush on mottled papyrus or the masterful swoop and turn of the squeegee, Shoe knows that there are no half steps once the liquefied pigment hits the surface. A commitment has been made.

Niels Shoe Meulman Shoe Is My Middle Name Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam 2016.

A large coffee table book with a unifying cerulean wash / black two-tone pointillist screen motif throughout, the story of his many exploits is moderated with poetry and outtakes of reviews by or observations by the artist. In one descriptive passage about his work “The Secret Ingredient”, the Amsterdam lifer who has traveled the world says it required “a perfect mix of intuition, imagination, courage and madness.”

Carlo McCormick writes in his essay, “We honor Shoe as the great cross-pollinator who came to New York City as a kid to meet the graffiti master Dondi and brought Wild Style back to Europe, but his strength remains just how far he can still can carry this immoderate load.” Based on his path and his evolution, we’ll consider this beautiful monster to be in a mid-career retrospective and some of his most masterful work is yet to come.

Niels Shoe Meulman Shoe Is My Middle Name Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam 2016.

“DID TUNNELS IN PARIS
THAT WALL IN BERLIN
DID ACID IN BROOKLYN
ALL WITHOUT SIN

DID ROOFTOPS IN LONDON
IN MUNICH SOME TIME
DID TRAMLINES AND STATIONS
NO LIFE WITHOUT CRIME

DID TRAINS IN THE BRONX
TAGS ON A PLANE
DID MURALS IN DELHI
ALL WITHOUT SHAME

DID LECTURES IN DUBLIN
GOT CHASED BY CHINESE
DID EXHIBITS DOWN UNDER
AND IN LOS ANGELES”

From “A Writer’s Song” by Niels Shoe Meulman

Niels Shoe Meulman Shoe Is My Middle Name Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam 2016.

All photos of the book’s plates © Jaime Rojo

Niels Shoe Meulman “Shoe Is My Middle Name” is published by Lebowski Publishers / Overamstel. Amsterdam, 2016. Click HERE for more information.

Alison Young Examines and Presents the “Street Art World”

January 28, 2017 Artists

Contested space is a term accurately describing the Street Artists’ relationship with the world outside your door; a place where the aesthetics are up for grabs, autonomously determined, willfully exploited.

Alison Young. Street Art World Reaktion Books Ltd. London, 2016

Drawing upon twenty years of empirical observation, scholarly study, and interviews with artists and experts throughout a constellation of cities where this art-making has flourished, “Street Art World” by Alison Young examines this contested space from every angle to present a balanced assessment for understanding our moment.

A professor of criminology at University of Melbourne, Young delivers her fourth volume on the topic of Street Art with a confidence and unique perspective that few can claim thanks to extensive travel and periodic, repeated and ongoing tracking of an evolving family of practices.

Alison Young. Street Art World Reaktion Books Ltd. London, 2016

With many points of departure, Young makes sure to ground the current movement in enough history and storytelling and informed analysis to allow even the casual reader many entry points for understanding what can at times be an enigmatic populist art subculture.

Alison Young. Street Art World Reaktion Books Ltd. London, 2016

That the movement is awkwardly gaining mainstream acceptance (sometimes against its will) is undisputed, and Young makes sure to examine its role in the gentrification of cities, its difficult relationship with its siblings graffiti and murals, its immigration into fine art and contemporary art, the dance with commercial galleries/interests, and the minx-like tacit embrace of large institutions. She even examines the difficulties that artist have in categorizing their own work and their ambivalence with labels – just one indicator of Young’s adept sensitivity to the finer shadings of a complex “scene”.

In our blurb for the book we wrote, “Alison Young understands the street art world as few people do.” Here’s the evidence.

Alison Young. Street Art World Reaktion Books Ltd. London, 2016

Alison Young Street Art World was published by Reaktion Books Ltd. London, UK. 2016

Shepard Fairey: Earth Crisis

July 11, 2016 Artists

Artist and activist Shepard Fairey this week releases a 2 volume “Earth Crisis” set that commemorates a recent public environmental project and doubles as a collection of plates to jumpstart your collection which you could easily frame and hang. With it comes powerful socio-political messages common to his wheelhouse delivered with the artists often iconic sense of design.

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

With his enormous “Earth Crisis” globe project mounted at the Eiffel Tower for COP21 last November, Fairey brought his activist history, design history, and sense of timing and location to a stunning crescendo with this project. Suspended 60 meters overhead at the base of the tower while world leaders were gathered to discuss global warming, climate change, and energy policy in the so-called First world and Developing world, the globe incorporated many of the messages that Fairey has been bringing to the streets over the last two decades to provoke discussion.

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

In addition to thick cardboard plates of details from the Mandela he created for Paris, a second book of posters addressing related themes is included with his signature style incorporating mid-century slogans and advertising design, punk rock culture rage, and word-play that illuminates and hammers.

Topically the plates address themes including only some of those Mr. Fairey has continued to feature front and center in his street work and fine art and design: campaign-finance reform, the oil economy, air and water, corruption in politics, private control of public natural resources, green energy, the seduction of advertising, corporate collusion, fake patriotism and real climate change.

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Of particular poignance are some of the artists observations and motivations for making the work, including one particularly reflective statement that may point to an artists own struggle to affecting change. He speaks about reading Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” published in 1962 and the effect it had on many.

“The title ‘silent spring’ was intended to force readers to contemplate spring time without the sound of songbirds – a jarring picture but also a reminder that our emotional connection to our environment is mainly just aesthetic,” Fairey writes. “If we stay oblivious to ecological destruction until we notice the aesthetics change by then it will be too late.”

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

All photos of the book’s plates © Jaime Rojo

Shepard Fairey / OBEY Earth Crisis published by Editions Albin Michel. Paris, France. July 2016.

Stik : His First Collected Volume of Work

June 21, 2016 Artists

An unusual little tall man, this Stik man.

Deceptively simple, he expresses profound truths that are anything but. Since the turn of this century in his hometown of Hackney, the formerly homeless Stik has been bringing his unassuming line drawn character out to the streets of northeast London, often Shoreditch. With few details and is as uncluttered as a logo, Stik towers above on the side of a housing behemoth, or a water tower, or a doorway.

Now comes a handsome tome in red canvas that tells more about this artist who has been staying mum for so long. Like the unflashy Stik man, Stik is not malicious but thoughtfully quietly present, giving modest and monumental witness to the street – as well as social issues common to the street. While he does many authorized projects for human rights, social equality, and issues addressing immigration, homelessness, and family, Stik is largely and quietly advocating for an equitable view where each one is treated fairly.

Simple enough, right?

STIK. Published by Penguin Books – Random House. New York City. 2016

Photos of the book plates by © Jaime Rojo

Graffiti Murals: Exploring The Impacts Of Street Art

June 7, 2016 Artists

New Book by Patrick Verel Attempts to Untangle the Graffiti Mural Discussion

In Graffiti Murals: Exploring The Impacts Of Street Art, a methodical study of graffiti and murals in Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Staten Island, Jersey City, Philadelphia, and Trenton (New Jersey), author Patrick Verel talks to all of the stakeholders he can find, revealing much in the telling of his findings. The author says he created this book from a paper he was researching for while completing his masters degree in urban studies, and you can tell his intention was to turn over as many stones as possible to study the impact this grassroots art movement is having on the communities that murals appear in.

Within an academic framework Verel makes sure to interview artists, property owners, local neighbors, law enforcement, and even the occasional Marxist scholar who explains the concept of “creative destruction” in capitalist global cities and the “necessary” cycles of gentrification they go through, often abetted unwittingly by artists.

He carefully studies some causative factors for graffiti writing, metrics for measuring in a sphere of criminality, the difficult distinctions we make between tags and throwies versus pieces, productions, and graffiti murals, and the sneakily deliberate practice of using sanctioned graffiti and Street Art as a deterrent for the unsanctioned stuff.

In the context of urban studies and planning, the creativity here is sort of reduced to pawndom, but as a social factor, he provides examination of the intersections of invested parties. It’s a tricky line to walk with possibilities of triangulation everywhere on this tightrope, but ultimately a wide swath of opinions is sampled by the author and given to you to assess.

Oh, yes, there are also murals – captured in situ, without romance. In this way the images are illustrative and informational amidst fields of text that sometimes gets into the weeds.

Couched in the agendas of city planners, business improvement districts, policy makers, landlords, and straight up economic lever-pullers, the aesthetic and cultural growth of the graffiti scene (and its various tributaries) takes a little bit of a backseat in this version of an enormous half-century long story.

Undoubtedly, every reader will come away knowing something new from “Graffiti Murals” and with a greater appreciation for many of the complexities around them in the US. Congratulations to Verel for trying to make sense of the contradictory laws, opinions, and social strategem that currently guide our path.

Graffiti Murals by Patrick Verel. Schiffer Publishing. 2016 (photos of plates by Jaime Rojo)

Graffiti Murals: Exploring the Impact of Street Art. Patrick Verel. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

“Street Art / Today” features 50 of the Most Influential Street Artists

May 30, 2016 Artists

It’s nearly impossible to arrange the work of Street Artists into lists of “top” or “most popular” or “most influential”, but it happens all the time now particularly as the street art world morphs into a commercial and professional scene for some. But it’s a dodgy business when one tries to rank art and artists – and most people will disagree with your list no matter what.

Street art / today. Bjørn Van Poucke & Elise Luong. Lannoo Publishers. Belgium. 2016.

At best it is useful to devise a set of metrics to measure, compare, and contrast works amidst the chaos and to imbue a sense of order and perhaps, hierarchy – although anathema to founding roots of punk/ situationist/ culture jamming philosophies that would detest the very word. Academia at the moment is studying and devising those metrics according to their unique values and understanding, as are auction houses, cultural curators, art dealers, historians, collectors, art sellers, and the actual people who make art.

Street art / today: The 50 most influential street artists today by Bjørn Van Poucke & Elise Luong from Lannoo publishers in Belgium devises a narrow criterion for selection of these artists, according to the preface. “The featured artists have been chosen according to their productions in the public space over the past two years. We examined their consistency in terms of style and technical quality, the influence their originality has had on other practising artists, and their popularity across various social media outlets.”

Street art / today. Bjørn Van Poucke & Elise Luong. Lannoo Publishers. Belgium. 2016.

This of-the-moment selection of popularity may be primarily aimed at collectors who are able to purchase the fine art works through galleries or dealers, more than historical students or fans of the scene. You may even see this as a catalog, a quick primer for the investor and a helpful snapshot of a moment in the evolving mural movement that is bringing these amazing talents to curated festivals globally as commercial vehicles or products or revitalizers of economically challenged cities.

Street art / today. Bjørn Van Poucke & Elise Luong. Lannoo Publishers. Belgium. 2016.

The selection here also may favor the artists who have access, the freedom to travel, a formal arts education, some financial wherewithal, and the savvy to market one’s work digitally to those surfing the Internet. Many here are excellent marketers and are tirelessly pursuing professional careers in contemporary art with their public works often augmenting their gallery shows and dealers whom they sell through and the direct collectors whom they meet via social media.

Street art / today. Bjørn Van Poucke & Elise Luong. Lannoo Publishers. Belgium. 2016.

While the more accepted definition of Street Art is illegal and unsanctioned, the majority of images here are of fully realized, usually large, legal or sanctioned murals by illustrators, designers, painters; and they are documented here most often by the artists themselves. Rather than looking at this as Street Art, with few exceptions it may be more accurate to say it is a book of legal commissioned/permissioned murals by artists who have roots as Street Artists or graffiti artists.

It is a beautiful aggregation, and certainly many of these artists have been interviewed and regularly featured on websites and other free cultural outlets like this one providing depth, context, analysis, information, and exposure. Having a hard copy of this collection of fifty in your hand will help freeze this moment for posterity as the scene/s continue to evolve.

Street art / today. Bjørn Van Poucke & Elise Luong. Lannoo Publishers. Belgium. 2016.

Street art / today: The 50 most influential street artists today by Bjørn Van Poucke & Elise Luong published by Lannoo. Belgium.

Rubin: “Scandinavia / New York” Studio Works and Murals

May 26, 2016 Artists

An immigrant’s tale, Rubin’s, and a New York story as well. For his first artists monograph the Fin by way of Sweden brazenly tells you his story in a most deliberate and considered way. It’s brazen because it’s a truth that has taken him a long time to be ready to tell, ready to be vulnerable. It’s carefully considered because – that’s his style.

Rubin. Scandinavia / New York Studio Works and Murals. Dokument Press 2016

“New York is still very much a city of opportunities, but only if you are willing to work hard,” he says in the interview, and as you read his story of growing up in working class Sweden, treated as a second class Fin son of two guest workers living in a housing project, losing his father as an adolescent, running the streets and riding trains to nearby Gothenburg as a teen while the drug trade grew – you clearly get the idea that hard work is a lifestyle.

Along the way through his history to his current art on the streets you are regaled with the black and white geometric simplicity and spare dynamism of photography looking across roofs at brutalist architecture, down a long empty escalator at the tram station, up into the gray sky overtaken by a concrete water tower in his hometown Bergsjön, and across a detail of his own monochromatic mid-century modern abstraction on a canvas, spattered strategically to give gently curving geometric forms a crisp, celestial aura.

Rubin. Scandinavia / New York Studio Works and Murals. Dokument Press 2016

In fact it is when he takes a summer college class in photography as a young man that Rubin sights a shift in his worldview. His sharpened observation skills previously had been honed as a hell-raising graff writer and student of style, but now he was framing and containing and seeing the planes and the forms differently.

Seeing the book and speaking with him in person, you’ll quickly know that graffiti is at the root of his work today. Björn Almqvist, author, publisher, and editor of “Graffiti Burners”, also published by Dokument, offers a clear assessment of the graffiti writer who eventually stripped his style down and parlayed it into what we know today.

Rubin. Scandinavia / New York Studio Works and Murals. Dokument Press 2016

“Rubin spent the summer months with his grandmother in Finnish Lapland, but during the rest of the year his who existence revolved around the corner from Rymtorget, with the school and the tram stop only a couple of minutes away,” writes Almqvist. “Nearby was also the garage that Rubin and his friend discovered and transformed into Gothenburg’s most popular Hall of Fame. Rubin soon distinguished himself as a dedicated and skilled graffiti artist. He tried unusual styles and soon found his own forms of expression that inspred graffiti far beyond Bergsjön and Gothenburg. Art became his way of life, his identity and a way for him to relate to society.”

Rubin. Scandinavia / New York Studio Works and Murals. Dokument Press 2016

Years later Rubin still says that “everything originates from graffiti letters,” even though he tired of the restrictions and repetitiveness of simply writing his five letter tag- or five letters and three numbers: Rubin415. “I’ve been told that my style resembles traditional graffiti but with Scandinavian-style clean lines and shapes,” he says. Certainly he has attacked and regaled Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan and points around New York with this developing style over the last handful of years; murals indoors and outside, and a growing number of finished fine art works coming from his Brooklyn studio.

With an un-erring sense of color, the contained compositions offer an antidote to the chaotic quality of city living, but he carefully steps aside of any suburban pleasantry for the sake of safety. These are soaring city lights, swerving streetscapes, jutting smokestacks, rusted hulks, plump water towers, throbbing beams of light, hidden peeping entrances, refracted urban revelation.

Rubin. Scandinavia / New York Studio Works and Murals. Dokument Press 2016

Not only has Rubin quietly made a name for himself with an industrious string of projects that doesn’t seem to end, he has knocked out brick walls, construction fences, rooftops and even a church backyard with sensitivity to context, an awareness of modern design history, and a strength of conviction big enough to alter whatever environment he’s in.

Rubin. Scandinavia / New York Studio Works and Murals. Dokument Press 2016

Rubin. Scandinavia / New York. Studio Works and Murals. Published by Dokument Press 2016. Sweden.

Rubin exhibition Scandinavia / New York is currently on view at the WallsWorks Gallery in The Bronx. Click HERE for further information.

“The Art Of The Mural: Volume 01” Captures a Moment

May 10, 2016 Artists

Murals hold their own place onstage in public space today for a variety of reasons that we discuss regularly on BSA. From grassroots and public, to private and corporate, we have watched the genre professionalize as Street Art festivals and other initiatives are often coupling artists with brands and are selling canvasses through the organizers galleries. Today we have the first of a promised four-part book series by Art Whino gallerist and organizer of the Richmond Mural Project in Virginia, Shane Pomajambo, that features many artists he has worked with in the brand new “The Art of the Mural”.

Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Featuring more than fifty current graffiti/Street Artists, the survey pays special attention to the show-stopping eye candy that commands attention for these nomadic painters who are developing their craft before an ever larger and more appreciative international audience.

Culture critic and curator Carlo McCormick, who writes the introduction to the Schiffer published hardcover, notes that this mural renaissance is quite unlike the US government funded New Deal era mural programs that produced “hundreds of thousands of murals for schools, hospitals, post offices, housing projects, and various government facilities”. And he’s right, these are emanating from a different place entirely.

Antony Lister. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

The world-traveling media-soaked artists, of which this collection is subset, have had vastly more exposure to corporations and branding perhaps than, say, arts institutions, and a sophisticated self-handling is often on display with artists ever more savvy in their choices of style and content.

A greater percentage are now entering into private collections, galleries, and museums thanks to unprecedented platforms for huge exposure on the Internet, and their public works are adding rich character and dialogue to our neighborhoods and public spaces.

Curiot. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

With academia, art critics, and auction houses all grappling with the rightful place of these artists in contemporary art and society at large it will be instructive to know the history and their lineage, content, context, and patronage. One has to agree when McCormick says that all of these “are helpful for us to consider in looking at and understanding the artists’ walls of today.”

This collection of talent is strong, with many of the mid-large names that are at play in this generation of painters whom are primarily born in the 1970s and 80s. In their work is a cultural appreciation for modern graffiti history as they now channel it along with formal training, art history, advertising, and a multitude of media. With few exceptions, it’s a tight list of artists, the images are riveting (though uncredited to their photographers), and the brief introductions by Pomajambo contain just enough biographical information and artist’ quotes to ground the story and give it context.

“As with everything I do,” says the Queens, New York native Pomajambo, “I always question and observe, and as we reach critical mass with murals I felt compelled to create this project and capture a moment in time.”

Evoca 1. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Fintan Magee. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Miss Van. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

MOMO. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Onur & Wes 21. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Telmo & Miel. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Tone (Robert Proch). Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

All photos of the spreads by Jaime Rojo

The Art of The Mural: Contemporary International Urban Art. Volume 01 by Shaen Pomajambo. Schiffer Publishing. Atglen, PA. USA.

Participating Artists
Amose, Arraiano, Augustine Kofie, Axel Void, Bezt (Etam Crew), Chazme 718, Chor boogie, Clog Two, Curiot, Cyrcle, DALeast, Decertor, Dface, ETNIK, Faith47, Fintan Magee, Hense, INTI, Jade, Jaz, JR, Kenor, Lister, Logan Hicks, Low Bros, Meggs, Miss Van, Momo, Mr Thoms, Muro, Natalia Rak, Nosego, Onur, Pener, Reka, Robert “Tone” Proch,Ron English, Rone, Sainer (Etam Crew), SATONE, SEACREATIVE, Sepe, Smithone, Sten Lex, Stormie Mills, Telmo Miel, Tristan Eaton, TWOONE HIROYASU, Vhils, Wes21 and Zed 1

Merry Christmas 2024 From BSA
December 25, 2024
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »
Photos of 2024 on BSA – #7: Optimo NYC and Friends Under the Bridge
December 24, 2024
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »
Photos of 2024 on BSA – #8: Never Satisfied “Forever Forward”
December 23, 2024
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »
Photos of 2024 on BSA – #9: Nekst, Guess, and Ethics in Street Art
December 22, 2024
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »
Photos of 2024 on BSA – #10: Flaco the Owl a Folk Hero for a Minute in NYC
December 21, 2024
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »
Photos of 2024 on BSA – #11: Support the Kids
December 20, 2024
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »
Photos of 2024 on BSA – #12: Lady Pink’s Love Letters to the City at UN
December 19, 2024
We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family …Read More »

“Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.” Carl Jung

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London. UK. 2016

The founder of analytical psychology would have looked at the hands of RUN and perhaps understood more about his lifelong psychological process than the average intellect, and yet seeing RUN’s carefully formed people on the street captivates your imagination as well.

These are the dreams he creates with his expressive hands, conscious or unconscious features that over time have developed into archetypes to be combined, adorned, alone, and recombined. Not surprisingly, his people often have a grasp, a hold, a flair for the five fingered gesture as well.

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London. UK. 2016

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London. UK. 2016

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London. UK. 2016

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London. UK. 2016

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London. UK. 2016

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London. UK. 2016

Giacomo Bufarini AKA RUN Time Traveller Artist Man Unicorn Publishing Group. London, UK. 2016

Buff Monster Stay Melty Gingko Press. Berkeley, CA. 2015

Buff Monster Stay Melty Gingko Press. Berkeley, CA. 2015

Buff Monster Stay Melty Gingko Press. Berkeley, CA. 2015

Buff Monster Stay Melty Gingko Press. Berkeley, CA. 2015

Buff Monster Stay Melty Gingko Press. Berkeley, CA. 2015

Buff Monster Stay Melty Gingko Press. Berkeley, CA. 2015

Buff Monster Stay Melty Gingko Press. Berkeley, CA. 2015

Niels Shoe Meulman Shoe Is My Middle Name Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam 2016.

Niels Shoe Meulman Shoe Is My Middle Name Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam 2016.

Niels Shoe Meulman Shoe Is My Middle Name Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam 2016.

Niels Shoe Meulman Shoe Is My Middle Name Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam 2016.

Niels Shoe Meulman Shoe Is My Middle Name Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam 2016.

Niels Shoe Meulman Shoe Is My Middle Name Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam 2016.

Niels Shoe Meulman Shoe Is My Middle Name Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam 2016.

Niels Shoe Meulman Shoe Is My Middle Name Lebowski Publishers, Amsterdam 2016.

Alison Young. Street Art World Reaktion Books Ltd. London, 2016

Alison Young. Street Art World Reaktion Books Ltd. London, 2016

Alison Young. Street Art World Reaktion Books Ltd. London, 2016

Alison Young. Street Art World Reaktion Books Ltd. London, 2016

Alison Young. Street Art World Reaktion Books Ltd. London, 2016

Alison Young. Street Art World Reaktion Books Ltd. London, 2016

Alison Young. Street Art World Reaktion Books Ltd. London, 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

STIK. Published by Penguin Books – Random House. New York City. 2016

New Book by Patrick Verel Attempts to Untangle the Graffiti Mural Discussion

Graffiti Murals by Patrick Verel. Schiffer Publishing. 2016 (photos of plates by Jaime Rojo)

Street art / today. Bjørn Van Poucke & Elise Luong. Lannoo Publishers. Belgium. 2016.

Street art / today. Bjørn Van Poucke & Elise Luong. Lannoo Publishers. Belgium. 2016.

Street art / today. Bjørn Van Poucke & Elise Luong. Lannoo Publishers. Belgium. 2016.

Street art / today. Bjørn Van Poucke & Elise Luong. Lannoo Publishers. Belgium. 2016.

Street art / today. Bjørn Van Poucke & Elise Luong. Lannoo Publishers. Belgium. 2016.

Street art / today. Bjørn Van Poucke & Elise Luong. Lannoo Publishers. Belgium. 2016.

Rubin. Scandinavia / New York Studio Works and Murals. Dokument Press 2016

Rubin. Scandinavia / New York Studio Works and Murals. Dokument Press 2016

Rubin. Scandinavia / New York Studio Works and Murals. Dokument Press 2016

Rubin. Scandinavia / New York Studio Works and Murals. Dokument Press 2016

Rubin. Scandinavia / New York Studio Works and Murals. Dokument Press 2016

Rubin. Scandinavia / New York Studio Works and Murals. Dokument Press 2016

Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Antony Lister. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Curiot. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Evoca 1. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Fintan Magee. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Miss Van. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

MOMO. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Onur & Wes 21. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Telmo & Miel. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Tone (Robert Proch). Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Featured Video | Martin Wong’s “Houston Street”

Recent Articles on BSA

Enjoy BSA? Please tell your friends :)

Sign up for the BSA Newsletter !

Enter your email address for insight, photography, reviews and news directly in your inbox.

“Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.”
Carl Jung