The Birth Of Graffiti

Book description to come.

Ranging from the birth of simple signature tags to today's vibrant murals, and covering the ups and downs of the movement, the culture's value system, and its social framework, "Graffiti New York" provides an essential history of this art form. Illustrated.

Presents photographs of graffiti or writing that started covering the city in the late sixties and early seventies.

Beginning in July 2009, the Fondation Cartier will be hosting an exhibition that celebrates street art. The show and the accompanying catalogue first reexamine the birth and evolution of the graffiti movement in New York in the early 1970s, and feature documentation from that time, including press clips and photographs of tags and graffiti by artists such as Lee, Seen, and Lady Pink, among others. The book then explores the explosion of creativity worldwide that followed the New York movement, especially in Paris, which became the nerve center for European graffiti in the 1980s. It juxtaposes the different aesthetics of cities like New York, Paris, London, Berlin, and Sao Paulo, highlighting styles specific to each city and the diverse practices of contemporary artists who began in the graffiti movement. There are interviews with artists who influenced the development of street art and with others, such as gallery owners, who were involved in its evolution.

The definitive book on New York's subway graffiti movement, "Graffiti Kings" features personal interviews with the artists and more than 275 full-color, previously unpublished photographs that bring the movement's origins to life.

"The Faith is the bible of graffiti. It forever captures the place, the time, and the writings of those of us who made it happen." —Snake I In 1973, author Norman Mailer teamed with photographer Jon Naar to produce The Faith of Graffiti, a fearless exploration of the birth of the street art movement in New York City. The book coupled Mailer's essay on the origins and importance of graffiti in modern urban culture with Naar's radiant, arresting photographs of the young graffiti writers' work. The result was a powerful, impressionistic account of artistic ferment on the streets of a troubled and changing city—and an iconic documentary record of a critical body of work now largely lost to history. This new edition of The Faith of Graffiti, the first in more than three decades, brings this vibrant work—the seminal document on the origins of street art—to contemporary readers. Photographer Jon Naar has enhanced the original with thirty-two pages of additional photographs that are new to this edition, along with an afterword in which he reflects on the project and the meaning it has taken on in the intervening decades. It stands now, as it did then, as a rich survey of a group of outsider artists and the body of work they created—and a provocative defense of a generation that questioned the bounds of authority over aesthetics.

A catalog of an exhibition that surveys the history of international graffiti and street art.

What is graffiti? And why have we, as a culture, had the urge to do it since 30,000 BCE? Artist Fiona McDonald explores the ways in which graffiti works to forever compel and simultaneously repel us as a society. When did graffiti turn into graffiti art, and why do we now pay thousands of dollars for a Banksy print when just twenty years ago, seminal graffiti artists from the Bronx were thrown into jail for having the same idea? Graffiti has not always been imbued with a sense of aesthetic, but when and why did we suddenly “decide” that it is worthy of consideration and criticism, just within the past few years? Throughout history, graffiti has served as an innately individualistic expression (such as Viking graffiti on the walls of eighth-century churches), but it has also evolved into a visual and narrative expression of a collective group. Graffiti brings to mind not only hip-hop culture and urban landscapes, but petroglyphs, tree trunks strewn with carved hearts symbolizing love, and million-dollar works of art. Learn about more graffiti artists and rebels such as: the band Black Flag, Lee Quinones and Fab 5 Freddy, Dandi, Zephyr, Blek le Rat, Nunca, Keith Haring, and more! Illustrated with stunning full-color photos of graffiti throughout time, The Popular History of Graffiti promises to be an important and dynamic addition to graffiti literature.

A sweeping history of Los Angeles told through the lens of the many marginalized groups—from hobos to taggers—that have used the city’s walls as a channel for communication Graffiti written in storm drain tunnels, on neighborhood walls, and under bridges tells an underground and, until now, untold history of Los Angeles. Drawing on extensive research within the city’s urban landscape, Susan A. Phillips traces the hidden language of marginalized groups over the past century—from the early twentieth-century markings of hobos, soldiers, and Japanese internees to the later inscriptions of surfers, cholos, and punks. Whether describing daredevil kids, bored workers, or clandestine lovers, Phillips profiles the experiences of people who remain underrepresented in conventional histories, revealing the powerful role of graffiti as a venue for cultural expression. Graffiti aficionados might be surprised to learn that the earliest documented graffiti bubble letters appear not in 1970s New York but in 1920s Los Angeles. Or that the negative letterforms first carved at the turn of the century are still spray painted on walls today. With discussions of characters like Leon Ray Livingston (a.k.a. “A-No. 1”), credited with consolidating the entire system of hobo communication in the 1910s, and Kathy Zuckerman, better known as the surf icon “Gidget,” this lavishly illustrated book tells stories of small moments that collectively build into broad statements about power, memory, landscape, and history itself.

Traces the history of New York graffiti, shows a variety of painted subway cars, and desribes the graffiti writers and how they work.