Books & magazines
Written by Webbert Thursday, 16 April 2009 18:53
Early New York subway graffiti 1973-1975
A couple of months ago we received an email pointing us to the above video clip, a promotional video for a forthcoming book about early New York graffiti.
We were amazed by the outstanding quality of the footage and got in touch with Keith Baugh, responsible for the book.
Keith Baugh is a painter and photographer from the UK and a lot of his work is inspired by visits to the USA.
It was on these visits to New York in the early 1970s where he shot amazing pictures of early New York graffiti, taken in Harlem and the South Bronx.
"What Keith, a total outsider to the actual creation of graffiti on the New York subway system, did was amazing.
He took photos of what very few other people bothered or cared to do.
He recognised that what he was seeing on the sides of the trains was something exceptional and new and as a result of this unusual sensitivity he took the time to capture for posterity the very empheral art that we now know as train writing"
Quote from Sami Montague, editor in chief of Graphotism, who wrote the introduction of the book.
So Keith was at the right place at the right time, as this period was one of the best for graffiti.
There was "an explosion of style, expression and unique imagery hitting the steel canvas" as Keith puts it himself in the foreword of the book.
In hind sight this can be viewed as the golden era of graffiti as the influence of the work presented in this book can be seen all over the world nowadays.
We were delighted when Keith promised to send us a copy and when the book was finally out we did receive it within days, thanks Keith!
And what a great book it is, our jaw dropped when we saw the quality and selection of the pictures in print. The book contains so many never seen before gems, unbelievable!
Every single graffiti enthusiast will love this book, and those with a special interest on New York graffiti will go nuts on this.
A lot of old skool graff legends are well represented, most notably Blade, Cliff 159 and Vamm.
This book fills in the gap between Jon Naars Birth of Graffiti and Martha & Henry's Subway Art perfectly and is a must have in our opinion if you want to understand where graffiti is coming from.
The first edition of Early New York Subway Graffiti is a special edition hardback of 1000 copies with 128 pages containing 180 previously unpublished pictures.
It's available through http://www.keithbaugh.com - (signed copies with, for a limited period, free worldwide postage at only £25.95)
Keith Baugh with legendary New York pioneer subway graffiti artist BLADE, Paris 14.01.2010
"This book is the real deal... old school nostalgia!" BLADE
Both Aerosolplanet and Ilovegraffiti.de did great interviews with Keith, make sure you read them for great background info on Keith, the pictures he took and how he came to publish the book after all these years.
From the interview on Aerosolplanet:
What was your immediate and first response to seeing the painted trains? Did you think of what you were seeing as vandalism, art, a youth phenomenon or something else?
"I still vividly recall the initial thrill and amazement on seeing this powerful artwork. The full impact, of course, was in seeing the trains in daylight from the elevated tracks.
The spray paint colour was rich, fresh and bright in the strong sunlight and very recent attempts to clear the windows with some kind of solvent gave off a strong acrid smell that mingled with the warm metallic blast from the over-heated braking system.
The graffiti was so extraordinary and unique that I muttered a few times under my breath ‘only in New York, only in New York.’
To my European eye this was an incredibly strong cultural phenomenon with the constant stream of writing on the passing trains providing an exotic visual mix of beat poetry, bebop, jive, pop art, jazz and Puerto-Rican funk…
‘Chico / Chico / Super Strut / Hondo / Sin / King / Silver Tips / Lil Hawk / Blade / Stoney Dice / All Jive / Stay High / Sky / Ale One / Soul Gag / Death / Kill / Mico / Mico and on and on.’
Now go visit Keith's website and order the book...
From Station2station
A few months ago we learned that a new book on the Dutch steel scene was in the making.
While in other countries it seems graffiti books are coming out almost every other week, Dutch publications are quite rare, so we were very happy to hear somebody was willing to put time and effort into making a book again.
The book is out now and were were the first ones to get our hands on it, here's the full review...
It's a hardcover book, containing 120 pages and over 900 full color pictures, focussing on the period of 2005 and 2006.
The nice design and lay out is done by Dutch graffiti writer / illustrator Zedz.
The book is divided in a couple of different sections:
- Bananas: Graffiti on yellow trains. Mainly on the "Hondekop", our national pride, combined with the yellow colored old type Sprinter.
- Mixed steel: Various train types and subways from the Netherlands. For example: Dubbeldekkers, "Hondekop", Sprinters, Koplopers, the amsterdam subway, ICE freight trains, scrap trains, etc.
- Internationals: A selection of international writers who have visited our country to paint trains or the amsterdam subway combined with local writers who have hooked up with them.
- Double trouble: Two writers who have frequently teamed up to paint during the years 2005-2006.
- Silvers: End-to-ends, top-to-bottoms, panels, backjumps, etc. on various train types, strictly with the use of silver paint for fill in.
- Group therapy: A group of writers who have painted together on a regular basis during the years 2005, 2006.
What's very interesting about this book is that it's made by Polly Lugz, a complete "outsider" of the graffiti scene.
A guy who has been taking thousands and thousands of pictures of graffiti on trains and subways over the last few years on various stations all over the Netherlands.
He worked on the book in secret, not telling anybody what he was up to as he wanted the release of the book to be a complete surprise to everyone.
The fact Polly Lugz isn't a trainwriter himself is particularly interesting, as he isn't closely affiliated with certain crews or writers featured in his book.
That way we can be sure Polly wasn't influenced by anyone else when he made the selection of the pictures that ended up in this book.
We believe this book is as close to a true representation of who was up in this period as possible.
Another thing that struck as when we studied the book a bit more carefully was the fact that it also contains "average" pieces.
In general most magazines and books tend to focus on the "biggest", the "craziest" or the most "beautiful" pieces nowadays and base their selection of what is being published on it.
Of course that's cool too, but it can also really distort your view on who is up and who's not. That's why we think Polly's "concept" is quite refreshing...
Polly did a great job and we sure hope this is the first in a serie, we would love to see a book like this every year or two..
Damage: €24,95
(Inter)national Distribution:
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Buy the book from our onlineshop
London Handstyles
You wonder why the UK, with its very active graffitiscene never had a dedicated graffiti book before.
But this year we could welcome the release of two UK graff publications all of a sudden: Crack & Shine and London Handstyles.
London Handstyles is a full colour, 160 page book with over 800 images documenting some of London's finest tags from the 80's through to the present day.
But It’s not only the pictures that make it a very interesting book, the editors of London Handstyles managed to interview a lot of infamous London writers and this resulted in tons of cool stories about chases, racking sprees and so on.
It’s the stuff we all love to read about and it gives the book that little extra that makes it worth reading the book more then once.
The book features the work of guys like Sub, Sham, Diet, Drax, Merok, Dzia, Zomby, Regret, 2 kold, Panik, 10 Foot and many, many more.
Don't expect any arty fart bullshit, or super clean pieces. This book is about graffiti in its purest form: tags and throw ups.
To be honest I’m not that familiar with the London graff scene as it has been about 15 years ago since I last visited the city.
So I can’t tell if the book shows an “honest” overview of those people who were most up in London over the years or what other criteria the editors might have used for their selection of featured writers.
On the other hand, we know from our own experience as editors, that a book, magazine or website can’t be a true representation of graffiti culture anyways…
The layout of the book is pretty straight-forward and works very well in our opinion.
At first we thought it was a bit strange that the quotes weren’t supported with a picture of a tag / throw up / action shot of the interviewee right next to it.
But soon we found this to be a interesting approach as it makes you start “picture hunting” throughout the book, looking for that one specific writer, going back and forth between pages.
We think its save to say that If you are down with hardcore streetbombing this is definitely a book you want to have, so don't miss out on it!
The book can be ordered online from the official website.
We hope to sell it at our onlineshop pretty soon as well.
What other people said about this book:
Fume DDS ’Looking at this book has brought straight back the buzz and mad memories and makes me want to go straight out and paint…A lot of unseen pics and great quotes showing what our life is like underground.’
Zomby FBS ’This book for me digs deep into London’s underground culture and history and at the same time gives lost or forgotten unsung heroes of our scene some light.’
Gates of graffiti
Doors are a popular target for graffiti writers. Doors make a good frame for the faster forms of graffiti and street art such as tags, stencils and posters.
In a doorway one can sneak in and execute its art without being noticed. Tags are the origin of graffiti art and is the purest and rawest form of it.
Gates Of Grafftit is the first book to focus on tags, their design and how writers communicate with them.
It is an unique chance to understand what tags are about and how beautiful they can be.
The texts are written by the well-known graffiti writers Smith from NYC, Punk from Gothenburg, Clint 176 from Berlin and Don Juan from Copenhagen.
Their open-hearted stories are a unique chance to take part of the fascinating stories, the motivation and the emotions surrounding the names that adorn the doors of major cities.
Gates Of Graffiti is published by Dokument Förlag know from titles such as Overground, Writers United and Dom kallar oss klottrare.
ISBN: 978-91-973981-9-0. Web: www.dokument.org
