The World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti

400 Pages·2013·25.62 MB·English

by  Schacter, Rafael

tHe
World atlas

ofs treet art

andGraffiti
World atlas

street art

Graffiti
tHe
World atlas

ofs treet art

andGraffiti

rafael sCHaCter
FOREWORD BY
CHRIS JOHNSTON
NORTH LATIN
AMERICA AMERICA
6 FOREWORD 16 NEW YORK 98 MEXICO CITY
8 INTRODUCTION 18 ESPO 100 DHEAR
22 FAILE 102 NEUZZ
394 GLOSSARY 26 HOW & NOSM 104 SANER
395 READ UP! 28 KATSU 106 SEGO Y OVBAL
395 ARTIST WEBSITES 30 MOMO
396 INDEX 34 NEW YORK BY MOMO 110 LOS CONTRATISTAS MONTERREY
399 CONTRIBUTORS 36 NOV YORK
399 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 38 RON ENGLISH 112 SÃO PAULO
399 PICTURE CREDITS 40 SWOON 114 CRIPTA DJAN
400 PUBLISHER CREDITS 116 HERBERT BAGLIONE
44 MARK JENKINS WASHINGTON, DC 118 NUNCA
46 EVAN ROTH DETROIT 120 OS GÊMEOS
50 CALEB NEELON CAMBRIDGE 124 VITCHÉ
54 THE READER CITIES ACROSS USA 126 VLOK
56 JETSONORAMA TUBA CITY, ARIZONA
128 BUENOS AIRES
58 SAN FRANCISCO 130 CHU
60 BNE 132 BUENOS AIRES BY CHU
62 GESO 134 DOMA
64 JURNE 136 FASE
66 SAN FRANCISCO BY JURNE 138 NAZZA STENCIL
68 KR 140 TEC
70 REYES
142 BASCO VAZKO SANTIAGO
72 LOS ANGELES 144 INTI CASTRO VALPARAISO
74 AUGUSTINE KOFIE
76 LOS ANGELES BY AUGUSTINE KOFIE
78 EL MAC
82 REVOK
84 SEVER
86 SHEPARD FAIREY
90 JIEM MONTREAL
92 REMIO VANCOUVER
CONTENTS
NORTHERN SOUTHERN REST OF THE
EUROPE EUROPE WORLD
150 LONDON 274 MADRID 358 MELBOURNE
152 CEPT 276 3TTMAN 360 BUFF DISS
154 EINE 280 ELTONO 362 DABS MYLA
156 GOLD PEG 284 NURIA MORA 364 LUSH
158 LONDON BY GOLD PEG 286 REMED 366 MELBOURNE BY LUSH
160 PETRO 290 SPOK 368 MEGGS
292 SPY 370 RONE
164 PARIS 296 SUSO33
166 HONET 372 SYDNEY
170 PARIS BY HONET 298 BARCELONA 374 BEN FROST
172 INVADER 300 ARYZ 376 DMOTE
174 OX 302 DEBENS
178 TURBO 304 KENOR 378 ANTHONY LISTER BRISBANE
182 ZEVS 306 SIXEART 382 IAN STRANGE PERTH
310 BARCELONA BY SIXEART 384 ASKEW ONE AUCKLAND
186 LES FRÈRES RIPOULAIN RENNES 312 ZOSEN 386 BMD WELLINGTON
190 INFLUENZA ROTTERDAM
194 ZEDZ AMSTERDAM 314 ESCIF VALENCIA 388 TOKYO
198 EROSIE EINDHOVEN 318 DEMS333 ELCHE 390 ESSU
320 SAN MORALEJA
202 BERLIN 324 LIQEN VIGO 392 DAL EAST WUHAN
204 AKIM 326 PELUCAS VIGO
208 ARAM BARTHOLL 328 NANO4814 VIGO
210 BRAD DOWNEY 332 VHILS LISBON
214 CLEMENS BEHR 334 108 ALESSANDRIA
216 BERLIN BY MARTIN TIBABUZO ( FASE) 338 MONEYLESS MILAN
218 WERMKE & LEINKAUF 340 FILIPPO MINELLI BRESCIA
222 STOCKHOLM 344 ATHENS
224 AKAY 346 ALEXANDROS VASMOULAKIS
228 NUG 348 BLAQK
350 GPO
232 AFFEX VENTURA COPENHAGEN 352 ATHENS BY GPO
234 COPENHAGEN BY AFFEX VENTURA
236 HUSKMITNAVN COPENHAGEN
238 EKTA GOTHENBURG
242 EGS HELSINKI
244 HELSINKI BY EGS
246 EPOS 257 PRAGUE
248 POINT PRAGUE
250 ZBIOK WARSAW
254 INTERESNI KAZKI KIEV
258 HOMER KIEV
262 VOVA VOROTNIOV KIEV
264 RADYA MOSCOW
268 VOINA ST. PETERSBURG

1 Self-portrait by John Fekner, Astoria, New York, USA, 2012
1
FOREWORD
The small Australian city of Ballarat is a goldrush town that was built on BY CHRIS JOHNSTON
the boom of the mid 1800s. It is a deeply conservative place, divided down
the middle between those with money and those without. Rural, semi-rural
and urban in one – it is middle Australia. In Ballarat, beneath the main sites throughout the country’s states and territories, dates back 30,000
thoroughfare of Sturt Street, there is a whole underground streetscape years. Look at the work of Kaff-eine, from Melbourne; one of her motifs is
of shopfronts, walls, laneways, cellars and tunnels. A new street was built a human figure with a stag’s head. Coy, lustful, raw, but also very primitive
over the old street; the ghost street below offers a suite of bare walls and and in tune with this incredible history of rock art, her work is in part about
surfaces waiting for messages from the new world to be daubed on them. spirits and humans intermingling. Reko Rennie, an Aboriginal artist of the
But they never will. There is a trapdoor down into this netherworld from Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay/Gummaroi people, pursues similar themes: his early
one of the working premises above, yet all is empty, all is quiet. There are works featured kangaroos and Aboriginal spearmen in hypercolour. More
no parables, messages or symbols of how we live, what we think and what recently, he has painted a landmark building in central Sydney in stark,
things might mean pasted, sprayed or painted in freehand. geometric, pink, black and blue lines in reference to the ancient drawings
Down there it is Australia before street art. It is a dull place. It reassures of his people. The words ‘Always Was, Always Will Be’ are written across
us of conformity, sameness, prohibition, old-fashioned values. It reminds the building: ‘This was Gadigal country,’ Rennie says, ‘and always will be.’
us of the fallacy that ‘the city’ – both literal and symbolic – is somehow Sydney was also home to a man named Arthur Stace. His juncture in
sacred. Meanwhile, above ground in real-life Ballarat, the debate about art this story lies between indigenous rock paintings and the contemporary
versus vandalism is just heating up. One business owner was featured in art of Reko Rennie. Over a thirty-five-year period from the 1930s, Stace
the city’s Courier newspaper after he commissioned local artist Cax to wrote the word ‘Eternity’ on footpaths and train station walls all over the
paint a shipping container on his property. The resulting work is spectacular, city, starting every day at 5 a.m. and stopping when the city woke. He was
yet the community is divided in a scenario that has been played out so many arrested twenty-four times. On New Year’s Eve at the start of the year
times before in cities everywhere, even ninety minutes down the road in 2000, Sydney Harbour Bridge was lit up with this word, the most famous
Melbourne, where prison terms are still handed out for ‘graffiti’ offences. in Sydney, but a word that was only ever written by Stace illegally in chalk.
Tourists visit Melbourne to see the street art in cobblestoned Hosier Today, Perth’s Kid Zoom works in the urban wastelands of the United
Lane in the same way that they visit Newtown in bustling, inner-city States, in Detroit and in Alabama, where he is taking ‘Australian street art’
Sydney. Most days Hosier Lane is an outdoor gallery full of clicking to a whole new level. He has bought up repossessed, post-industrial
cameras; you can even see people in wedding dress posing next to the homes, painted and set fire to them; the message is about consumerism
walls. In this laneway and many others, you will find the Australian and decay. His images and his ideas about the modern city can be traced
masters: Meggs, Rone, HA-HA, Lush, Kid Zoom (Ian Strange), Anthony back to ancient times. He is beyond words and marks on the wall, yet he
Lister. The state government of Victoria profits from Melbourne’s art, owes infinitely to those things.
yet they still penalize the artists. This is no different to most local As this inspiring book shows, Australian artists continue to make
governments elsewhere in the world, even in the most enlightened a significant contribution to this vibrant yet contentious art form. The
places. As a reader of the Ballarat Courier wrote, in correspondence earliest examples of Aboriginal rock art were lines created with a finger
with the paper during the ‘debate’: ‘this rubbish scribble is vandalism’. in limestone caves. Later came concentric circles, figures and female spirits
Australia, however, is different because it has a great history of writing drawn with ochre, but the finger started it – the finger that is still used
and drawing on walls. Aboriginal rock art, of which there are about 125,000 today with the aerosol and the stencil-cutter’s blade.
FOREWORD 7

1 Momo and Eltono, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2011
1
INTRODUCTION
The story of graffiti and street art presents us with an unimaginably physical forms (from apparently “vandalistic” tagging to ostensibly
vast arena. Both in terms of space, through its all pervasive global reach, “artistic” muralism), absorbed variant local influences (from the Italian
as well as time, through its status as a practice that is as old as human tradition of Arte Povera to the pixação of Brazil), occurred in multifarious
culture itself, the act of writing upon walls (also known as parietal writing) environments (from the densely populated city to the isolated desert),
is an equally ubiquitous and elemental act, one linked to the primal and been produced by disparate individuals (of every nationality, religion,
human desire to decorate, adorn, and physically shape the material and culture). Indeed, there are as many different motivations, styles, and
environment. Although its modern archetype only emerged in the late approaches within this artistic arena as there are practitioners themselves—
1960s, Independent Public Art—an umbrella term first coined by the a “street art” for every street artist, a “graffiti” for every graffiti writer.
theorist Javier Abarca and one that will be used throughout this book— Bringing these diverse practices together into one cohesive unit,
has itself now multiplied and spread, moving from its birthplace on the A World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti constitutes the most in-depth
East Coast of the United States to countless destinations around the and authoritative account of this contemporary art form and provides
world. As quite possibly the most common popular art form in existence the definitive biographical guide to the most original and inventive artists
today, this contemporary aesthetic practice has taken numerous different working in Independent Public Art today. The book profiles 113 individual
INTRODUCTION 9
1 Filippo Minelli, Tudela, Spain, 2011
1
or collective practitioners from twenty-five different countries, and and three from the rest of the world—were determined through another
includes sixteen city profiles written by experts from those regions. As set of criteria: Locations had to contain a critical mass of artists; be of
an “atlas,” we have also included twelve individually created city maps equal historical and contemporary importance; and to have produced
by a select group from the artists profiled. Rather than simply featuring a distinct variety of Independent Public Art. As such, the global scope of
a group of “traditional” maps, however, the maps shown are psycho- work shown in A World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti has materialized
geographic representations of the city, maps that can more perspicuously from various aesthetic lineages. Although the common point of foundation
account for the deeply ephemeral nature of the art discussed. The book for the majority of the work featured is the spray can art that so famously
incorporates a huge range of practices—including actions that have often burgeoned in New York City, other equally important movements, such as
been described as graffiti or street art, yet also embracing works that the aforementioned Italian Arte Povera and Brazilian pixação, American
extend beyond these traditional designations. Accompanied by stunning pop art and land art, the political stencils of Argentina, the Dutch De Stijl
illustrations, the book explores works that emerge via every conceivable movement, and Mexican muralism, have also exerted an immense
form of artistic medium; it examines styles from traditional graffiti to influence on the artists profiled. The city profiles provide the historical
sculptural intervention, from poster art to performance art, and from context for the art that is produced in these locations today, detailing the
geomentrical abstraction to photo-realistic figuration. In examining this surrounding influences that enabled the growth of the artists who
wide-ranging collection of artists, however, the book resists the urge emerged from these particular sites, including the work of pivotal figures
toward the sensationalism that these artists’ work is so often (and sadly) such as Banksy and Barry McGee. Demonstrating the enormous breadth
subjected. Giving what are often highly conceptual works the thorough and scope of this global movement, the book presents a body of work not
analysis they deserve, the book focuses on issues such as formal style, key linked through any specific formal aesthetic or conceptual standpoint, but
influences, and artistic development, bringing the vitally important social, through its physical status in the heart of the public sphere, its status as
political, and ethical dimensions of these artists’ cultural production to an art form intoxicated with the potential that this location bestows.
the fore. Illuminating the most significant figures, works, and themes As a form of popular art with a total lack of middle ground—works
to have emerged within contemporary Independent Public Art, A World are either immediately destroyed or reverently protected, practitioners
Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti therefore offers a global survey of the most are either fined and imprisoned or idolized and adored (often both at the
exciting international art being produced today and provides a definitive same time)—it is the strength of feeling that these artworks engender
review of this most contentious, committed, and clandestine of that is so enrapturing. Exploring work that is both consensual (outward-
contemporary art forms. looking and community embracing) and agonistic (inward-looking, with
The individual artists profiled in the book were selected according to more subculturally centered aspirations) in its approach, this volume
three separate criteria: Those chosen were practitioners currently operating brings together a group of diverse practices that are combined through
within the field of Independent Public Art today; they were fully active, their commitment to the public sphere whatever the cost in time, money,
working outside in the unrestricted, communal areas of the environment; and risk—a commitment to working for pleasure not gain, a commitment
and their work was emblematic of a certain form of street art or graffiti, to the belief that working in the public sphere is the only honest form of
the artist in question being a prime exemplar of his or her particular style. practice. The artists featured in this book are therefore those for whom
These parameters ensured that the text remained both relevant and the city is a medium not merely a canvas, a site for play and performance
contemporaneous (as well as avoiding unnecessary repetition of artists of not merely advertisement and ego. By giving these artists the visual and
similar styles). This criteria also meant that we excluded works that occur textual attention they deserve, I hope this book not only gives a taste of
in the private world of the gallery or the auction house, works that are the conceptual and material beauty of these practices, but also acts as a
institutionally commissioned, and the so-called latrinalia (markings made springboard for readers to delve deeper into the work of each artist. As
on lavatory or restroom walls) and gang graffiti that work within a more an art form that is so often treated with disdain—whether through
purely literal style. While these may all be worthy topics of study, it is condemnation by the police and judiciary or through its treatment as
simply contemporary artists who independently produce art in the public a second-class artistic citizen by academics and publishers alike—
realm that we have chosen to feature here. A World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti demonstrates the enormous vibrancy
The individual city profiles—three from North America, three from of this popular form of global contemporary art, a practice of image-
Latin America, four from northern Europe, three from southern Europe, making that remains untethered by the restraints of the white cube.
10 INTRODUCTION