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Graffiti World: Street Art from Five Continents Review
Graffiti World: Street Art from Five Continents Overviews
Ever since anonymous spray-can art began appearing on city walls in New York and Philadelphia in the late 1960s, graffiti has been a ubiquitous presence in the urban landscape, its artists largely unsung heroes. As hip-hop culture spread from America, graffiti became a worldwide phenomenon, emerging in the 1980s as the symbolic artistic language of young people everywhere and one of the most potent influences on youth-oriented marketing and design. With more than 2,000 illustrations by over 150 artists from all over the world and interviews with many of them, this visually arresting book is the most comprehensive survey of graffiti art ever published.
Today's young graffiti artists incorporate a variety of mediums-including stickers, stencils, oils, acrylics, and oil-based chalk-as well as an ever-expanding range of social commentary. This evolution in style and subject matter has earned graffiti the respect of the art world and guaranteed its long-lasting influence on art, graphic design, and style around the world. Great fun for graffiti and pop-culture buffs, the book is also an essential reference work for anyone involved in the visual arts today. AUTHOR BIO: Nicholas Ganz (also known as Keinom, his pen name) is a graffiti artist who has traveled around the world to gather material for this book. He lives in Essen, Germany. Tristan Manco is a graphic artist and director of Bristol-based Tijuana Design. He is the author of Stencil Graffiti and Street Logos.
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Customer Reviews
I couldn't believe the reviews I read about said book and the book itself were the same work because, quite simply, I was stunned by the sheer amount of time/ talent that went into some of the displayed pieces herein. When I thing "graffiti" I used to think kids on the corner trying to make blocky letters to say "this is my world," but books like this one have totally redefined the perception I harbor therein.Totally.Photo-realism, the evolution of stencils and the proclamations of people with messages and skill; it sleeps in picture after picture until the reader finds themself thinking on thing.Amazing.American Crews, European showings, "the rest of the world; there seems to be a universal song being sung in cans of paint and it sleeps in the 2000 + pictures here made by so many. 3A Crew, Binho, Dzine, Herbert, Siloette, Stayhigh, 123 Klan, blade, blef, Cheba, Dut, Jazi, KTo; each artist gets at least a page layout and there are oceans of names involved here.Check it out if you want to lose hours in observing something different and if you want that the stereotypical spraycan.
To the previous reviewer:Quote "It just goes to show how brainwashed everybody is into thinking this act of vandalism is an artform"Of course you are entitled to your opinion, however the sad thing is that you are actually the one who is brainwashed. I guess it is not your fault that years of conditioning have created a closed mind that is unable to appreciate art in forms other than a nice little square canvas hanging on your living room wall.Try to remove those blinkers once in a while you may be surprised.peaceOK, as for the book itself.....Pros: It covers a good spectrum of street art from many countries and is loaded with thousands of photos, making it a great coffee table book. When you open the book and flick through a few of the glossy pages the quality is obvious you really feel like you got your moneys worth.Pretty good mix of moonlight pieces and the legal stuff.Cons: The text is pretty minimal and offers only a brief intro to the artists, but I guess most people will be buying this book for the pictures anyway.I also thought it could have included some larger format pictures considering the page size, pretty minor complaint tho.Most people will find it a nice gentle intro in to the world of graf art, others a useful reference.
It is always interesting to see how different cultures handle the same medium. Plus any book with this many pictures and creative minds displayed is a winner with me. The colors are great too. It's actually overwhelming and I can't flip through the whole book in one sitting because there are so many examples to see. I'm no graffiti expert, but it's great to see how people choose to modify their surroundings with color and imagery.
I am really interested in graffiti of the world and have found it somewhat hard to find good books on the subject. Overall this is a good book with many full-color illustrations along with text giving credit to the artists. Since there are not that many graffiti books out there I believe this one is one of the best I've read yet. Although many of the pictures in this book are really good, they are basicly the same works that you can find images of online and through other resources. What I'm tring to say is that I wish there could have been some more never before seen illustrations, not the same old stuff I've seen a million times!
Nicholas Ganz has researched the topic of Street Art known in some circles as Graffiti and in this comprehensive book has gathered images not only from the United States but from five continents, images identified by artist with a brief biography accompanied by panorama shots of the larger scale works coupled with details. The result is a complex, lavishly illustrated survey of the art form of the streets and the people who create it.Graffiti is still a controversial subject. The one form of graffiti which simply marks gang areas or swiftly splays across windows and freeway overhangs and covers billboards is not the issue here. Yes, there is a destructive force to some forms of defacement known as tagging. But that is not the subject of this book. Not unlike the fine little Indie film 'The Graffiti Artist' by James Bolton, this book follows the art forms developed by various artists which are more like the murals of yesteryear that are now hallowed as masterpieces. Think Orozco, WPA, etc.Ganz writes well and his commentary, while mostly descriptive, does delve into some of the philosophical elements of Graffiti Art. Perhaps to those who view any art from a spray can as defacement and the work of hoodlums, this book will open the mind to a popular art of the street. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: perhaps that eye will benefit from this well-designed, well-written, and well-documented survey of international graffiti art. Grady Harp, November 05
Nicholas Ganz has done a great job at traveling the world to capture in this book the state of street art everywhere. Taking the reader through it by continents (Americas, Europe, Rest of the World), the book takes you on an in-depth, visually-loaded trip that highlights the work of the best street artists around these days.If you are looking for an in-depth look at the origins of this genre, you won't find much of that in "Graffiti World". However, if you want to compare street art between, say, Denmark and Sidney, or see how the New York style has had an indelible influence in places like Brazil or South Africa, this book will delight you as you learn all about it. Five stars job!
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