When the term "Hip Hop" is mentioned, most people think "rap music." But Hip Hop culture is more than Rap music. Hip Hop is made up of five "elements" and Graffiti writing is one of those five elements of Hip Hop culture. This is will teach children of all ages about the origins and growth of Graffiti writing in the United States.

Art, for Seerveld, belongs to the very infrastructure of a good society, in the same way that a country's economy, transportation system, or media network do: "With a vital artistic infrastructure priming its inhabitants' imaginativity, a society can dress its wounds and be able to clothe and mitigate what otherwise might become naked technocratic deeds." Redemptive Art in Society, introduced by Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin, addresses the need for Christian public artistry and ways in which Christians can be stewards of art.

Bogota Street Art is the first in a series that the passionate urban art documentarian, Jacqueline Hadel, is offering to the world. This quaint book features exciting and poetic visual images from Bogota, Colombia collected over four months in 2012.

Banksy's NYC Residency was the first of its kind; he was going to attempt to put a piece a day on the streets of New York. Jacqueline Hadel was there for all of it and on October 7th, she took a picture that was used by Banksy on his official website. Here's a book with original photographs and anecdotes describing the residency from the perspective of a photographer, writer, and more than anything, a fan.

This is a stunning visual showcase of Barcelona's street art renaissance. The new concept of urban art resists being caged within the walls of abandoned factories, run down housing estates, and subway cars. Its motives are much broader than those of the movement that started more than thirty years ago - we can now speak of a new "renaissance," an explosion of creativity, new ideas, and talent with thousands of artists from all over the world who display their innovative works of art on the streets, using them as a gigantic museum.

Hailed as the seminal study of spray can art of the 1970s and 1980s, "Aerosol Kingdom" explores the origins and aesthetics of graffiti writings.

From a vast array of inherited traditions and gritty urban lifestyles talented and renegade young New Yorkers spawned a culture of their own, a balloon-lettered shout heralding the coming of hip-hop. Though helpless in checking its spreading appeal, city fathers immediately went on the attack and denounced it as vandalism. Many aficionados, however, recognized its trendy aesthetic immediately. By the 1980s spray-paint art hit the mainstream, and subway painters, mostly from marginal barrios of the city, became art world darlings. Their proliferating, ephemeral art was spotlighted in downtown galleries, in the media, and thereafter throughout the land. Not only did the practice of "public signaturing" take over New York City, but also, as the images moved through the neighborhoods on the subway cars, it also grabbed hold in the suburbs. Soon it stirred worldwide imitation and helped spark the hip-hop revolution.

As the artists wielded their spray cans, they expressed their acute social consciousness. "Aerosol Kingdom" documents their careers and records the reflections of key figures in the movement. It examines converging forces that made aerosol art possible--the immigration of Caribbean peoples, the reinforcing presence of black American working-class styles and fashions, the effects of advertising on children, the mass marketing of spray cans, and the popular protests of the 1960s and 1970s against racism, sexism, classism, and war.

The creative period of the movement lasted for over twenty years, but most of the original works have vanished. Official cleanup of public sites erased great pieces of the heyday. They exist now only in photographs, in the artists' sketchbooks, and now in "Aerosol Kingdom."

Ami (short for Amitai, ahh-mee-tie) Plasse is a super-prolific NYC native artist who compiled a collection of almost 2000 drawings of the moments and characters he encountered on his daily subway ride between Brooklyn and Manhattan from 2007-2011. The best are in this volume of Ami Underground.

Art Out of the Ordinary You do not have to walk very far in any city today before seeing art plainly exhibited on the street. A building wall, sidewalk, traffic sign, or fence make an ideal canvas, transforming the urban landscape into an outdoor gallery. This art of the public space, widely referred to as graffiti or street art, has origins in the 1960s when it began as a subversive method of public communication for youth in Philadelphia and New York City. Over the last 40 years, a global phenomenon has taken over the streets of Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Sao Palo, Madrid, Melbourne, Tel Aviv, and Amsterdam, giving rise to one of contemporary art and culture's most important movements. This book presents a collection of photographs of art on the streets from around the world: New York City, Miami, Santa Fe, and Camden in the United States, Montreal and Toronto in Canada; Ravello and Siracusa in Italy; Barcelona, Spain; Tel Aviv and Acre in Israel, Luang Prabang, Laos; London, England; Casablanca and Essaouira in Morocco; and Amsterdam, Holland. The scope of these photographs presents graffiti, street art, and public art, as well as art simply put on public display. The geographical span coupled with the fact that many documented sites are not considered hotbeds for urban art production indicates the movement's global impact. Mediums range from graffiti, stencil art, and wheatpaste to site-specific installation and sculpture. Represented are the various categories used to label art on the street: illegal, commissioned, sanctioned, and unsanctioned. The highlighted works seem to be very different at first look, but there is a very strong bond connecting them. Each of these works presents us with art that is out of the ordinary.

In cities and towns throughout the world you may see an area of sidewalk decorated with chalk or pastels. This art form originated in Italy during the 16th century, with vagabond artists who painted religious pictures directly on the paved public squares, using chalk and charcoal. Thanks to the International Street Painting Festival in Grazie di Curtatone in Northern Italy, the art form has been revitalized, and festivals such as Absolut Chalk in Pasadena and the Italian Street Painting Festival in San Rafael, CA, attract up to 600 exhibitors and 60,000 visitors annually. Part folk art, part performance art, this fascinating genre, where chalk is substituted for paint and asphalt or concrete for canvas, is growing in popularity in the virtual world too, with online blogs and video streams celebrating the art.
Packed with vibrant examples from the author and other leading international street painters, Sidewalk Canvas includes magical 3-D illusions, original amusing twists on the old masters and works by artists famous in other media. In addition to a gallery of the best street painting from around the world, there are insights into how it is executed, where to find it, and how to create your own work. As well as appealing to practicing artists, art educators and the hundreds of thousands attending festivals worldwide, the book will also interest those commercial organizations seeking to commission street paintings for promotional purposes.

This, the sixth volume in the series 'Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology', assembles a series of innovative studies in the historical archaeology of graffiti. Contents: 1) Wild Signs: An Introduction (Jeff Oliver and Tim Neal); 2) Basque Aspen Carvings: The Biggest Little Secret of Western USA (Joxe Mallea-Olaetxe); 3) Elbow Grease and Time to Spare: The Place of Tree Carving (Jeff Oliver and Tim Neal); 4) Magic Markers: The Evocative Potential of Carvings on Stanton Moor Edge, Derbyshire, UK (Stella McGuire); 5) Traces of Presence and Pleading: Approaches to the Study of Graffiti at Tewkesbury Abbey (Kirsty Owen); 6) Signs of the Times: Nineteenth - Twentieth Century Graffiti in the Farms of the Yorkshire Wolds (Katherine Giles and Melanie Giles);

The politically charged art of Robbie Conal is gnarled, gut retching, and emotionally laden. Featuring every image in Robbie Conal's storied poster campaigns, this is the definitive history of "America's foremost street artist" (Washington Post). A foreword by Shepard Fairey, American contemporary street artist, graphic designer, and activist, sets the scene. Conal's satirical posters of political figures are given richer context as his life story is insightfully joined with art criticism by expert Daichendt. Today honored by museums and arts organizations around the world, Conal hit high speed during the Reagan administration in 1986, when he began turning his grotesque portraits into street posters. We see Conal's life come together at a critical moment to attack issues of censorship, war, social injustice, and the environment.

Photographer and master printer Brian Young first arrived in New York City in 1984. He witnessed all the well-known ills of '70s and early '80s New York, finding the city slowly, haltingly recovering from an economic depression. Industry and manufacturing jobs had left the city, and the population continued to drain out to the suburbs. The "crack epidemic" was on the front pages and on the streets. Abandoned shells of burnt-out cars littered the roads and muggings were simply a fact of daily life. Young found his camera increasingly drawn to the subway system--one of the great social levelers of life in New York City and, increasingly, the canvas for an explosive profusion of graffiti. Brian Young: The Train NYC 1984 collects the photographer's quiet, black-and-white shots of the subway from 1984, bringing a vanished New York evocatively back to life.

Getting Up for the People tells the story of the Assembly of Revolutionary Artists of Oaxaca (ASARO) by remixing their own images and words with curatorial descriptions. Part of a long tradition of socially-conscious Mexican art, ASARO gives respect to Mexican national icons; however, their themes are also global, entering contemporary debates on issues of corporate greed, genetically modified organisms, violence against women and abuses of natural resources. In 2006 ASARO formed as part of a broader social movement, and now they enjoy international recognition.

In The Writing of Where, Charles Lesh examines how graffiti writers in Boston remake various spaces within and across the city. The spaces readers will encounter in this book are not just meaningful venues of writing, but also outcomes of writing itself: social spaces not just where writing happens but created because writing happens. Lesh contends that these graffiti spaces reinvent the writing landscape of the city and its public relationship with writing. Each chapter introduces readers to different writing spaces: from bold and broadly visible spots along the highway to bridge underpasses seldom seen by non-writers; from inconspicuous notebooks writers call "bibles" to freight yards and model trains; from abandoned factories to benches where writers view trains. Between each chapter, readers will find "community interludes," responses to the preceding chapters from some of the graffiti writers who worked on this project. By working closely with writers engaged in the production of these spaces, as well as drawing on work invested in questions of geography, publics, and writing, Lesh identifies new models of community engagement and articulates a framework for the spatiality of the public work of writing and writing studies.

Most of the everyday writing from the ancient world--that is, informal writing not intended for a long life or wide public distribution--has perished. Reinterpreting the silences and blanks of the historical record, leading papyrologist Roger S. Bagnall convincingly argues, however, that ordinary people--from Britain to Egypt to Afghanistan--used writing in their daily lives far more extensively than has been recognized. Marshalling new and little-known evidence, including remarkable graffiti recently discovered in Smyrna, Bagnall presents a fascinating analysis of writing in different segments of society. His book offers a new picture of literacy in the ancient world in which Aramaic rivals Greek and Latin as a great international language, and in which many other local languages develop means of written expression alongside these metropolitan tongues.

Since the 2011 Arab Spring street art has been a vehicle for political discourse in the Middle East, and has generated much discussion in both the popular media and academia. Yet, this conversation has generalised street art and identified it as a singular form with identical styles and objectives throughout the region. Street art's purpose is, however, defined by the socio-cultural circumstances of its production. Middle Eastern artists thus adopt distinctive methods in creating their individual work and responding to their individual environments. Here, in this new book, Sabrina De Turk employs rigorous visual analysis to explore the diversity of Middle Eastern street art and uses case studies of countries as varied as Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Palestine, Bahrain and Oman to illustrate how geographic specifics impact upon its function and aesthetic. Her book will be of significant interest to scholars specialising in art from the Middle East and North Africa and those who bring an interdisciplinary perspective to Middle East studies.

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.

Most of the everyday writing from the ancient world - that is, informal writing not intended for a long life or wide public distribution - has perished. Reinterpreting the silences and blanks of the historical record, leading papyrologist Roger S. Bagnall convincingly argues that ordinary people - from Britain to Egypt to Afghanistan - used writing in their daily lives far more extensively than has been recognized. Marshalling new and little-known evidence, including remarkable graffiti recently discovered in Smyrna, Bagnall presents a fascinating analysis of writing in different segments of society. His book offers a new picture of literacy in the ancient world in which Aramaic rivals Greek and Latin as a great international language, and in which many other local languages develop means of written expression alongside these metropolitan tongues.

Public art is a form of communication that enables spaces for encounters across difference. These encounters may be routine, repeated, or rare, but all take place in urban spaces infused with emotion, creativity, and experimentation. In Painting Publics, Caitlin Bruce explores how various legal graffiti scenes across the United States, Mexico, and Europe provide diverse ways for artists to navigate their changing relationships with publics, institutions, and commercial entities. Painting Publics draws on a combination of interviews with more than 100 graffiti writers as well as participant observation, and uses critical and rhetorical theory to argue that graffiti should be seen as more than counter-cultural resistance. Bruce claims it offers resources for imagining a more democratic city, one that builds and grows from personal relations, abandoned or under-used spaces, commercial sponsorship, and tacit community resources. In the case of Mexico, Germany, and France, there is even some state support for the production and maintenance of civic education through visual culture. In her examination of graffiti culture and its spaces of inscription, Bruce allows us to see moments where practitioners actively reckon with possibility.

For most people the mention of graffiti conjures up notions of subversion, defacement, and underground culture. Yet, the term was coined by classical archaeologists excavating Pompeii in the 19th century and has been embraced by modern street culture: graffiti have been left on natural sites and public monuments for tens of thousands of years. They mark a position in time, a relation to space, and a territorial claim. They are also material displays of individual identity and social interaction. As an effective, socially accepted medium of self-definition, ancient graffiti may be compared to the modern use of social networks. This book shows that graffiti, a very ancient practice long hidden behind modern disapproval and street culture, have been integral to literacy and self-expression throughout history. Graffiti bear witness to social events and religious practices that are difficult to track in normative and official discourses. This book addresses graffiti practices, in cultures ranging from ancient China and Egypt through early modern Europe to modern Turkey, in illustrated short essays by specialists. It proposes a holistic approach to graffiti as a cultural practice that plays a key role in crucial aspects of human experience and how they can be understood.

Winner, Design Edge Regional Design AwardIn October 2001, paint was spilled on the streets of Montreal. A stark, primitive bike symbol, looking suspiciously like the one the city used to designate a bike path; a giant zipper, pulled open down the centre line of the street on a busy commuter route; the footprint of a giant, stomping through the city while people slept. Inspired by a desire for adventure and galvanized by a loathing of car culture, Roadsworth got down with an idea that had been incubating. The time had come for him to articulate his artistic vision, to challenge the notion of "public" space and whose right it is to use it. By 2004, Roadsworth had pulled off close to 300 pieces of urban art on the streets of Montreal. In the fall, he was charged with 51 counts of public mischief. It seemed to signal the end of his career. Instead the citizens of Montreal and lovers of his work from around the world rallied their support. A year later he was let off with a slap on the wrist. Since then, Roadsworth has developed as an artist, continuing to intervene in public spaces and to travel the world, executing commissioned work for organizations such as Cirque de Soleil, The Lost O (cycled over in le tour de France), and for municipalities, exhibitions, and arts festivals. In this playful and sometimes subversive book, featuring more than 200 reproductions of his unmistakable work, Roadsworth takes the urban landscape and turns its constituent elements on their heads, both indicting our culture's excesses and celebrating what makes us human (lest we forget).

Fascinating pavement chalk art by a master of the craft, now with new art. "Beever's mastery and unbridled humour are on full display in these dazzling drawings, each accompanied by a description that details artistic techniques, discusses challenges the artist faced, and offers an inside look into his process." Publishers Weekly (starred review, on the previous edition). The pavement chalk artist is a master of art, perspective, creativity and performance. Julian Beever is one such extraordinary master. More than just traditional flat drawings, the works Beever creates are uniquely three-dimensional anamorphic drawings. They are drawn in perspective and distorted so the subject can be viewed properly only from one particular viewpoint. For those who are standing in the right place, his chalk drawings invite them to step right into the scene or, in the case of the artist's well-known "Swimming Pool in the High Street", dive right into the water. Pavement Chalk Artist includes a fabulous selection of Beever's most intriguing anamorphic drawings. Each one is accompanied by a description of the techniques he used and the challenges he overcame. These photographs record the development of his unusual skill and understanding of perspective. Readers can see how his art progresses and matures as he takes on commissioned works and a wealth of original, inventive subjects in locations worldwide. The photographs tell the story, giving readers both an understanding of the principles of this 3-D art form and the pleasure of sharing the scenes that passersby once enjoyed before these unique works disappeared forever. This new edition includes 16 new pages of Beever's recent art, in addition to the 16 added to the second edition, for a total of 32 new pages.

For most people the mention of graffiti conjures up notions of subversion, defacement, and underground culture. Yet, the term was coined by classical archaeologists excavating Pompeii in the 19th century and has been embraced by modern street culture: graffiti have been left on natural sites and public monuments for tens of thousands of years. They mark a position in time, a relation to space, and a territorial claim. They are also material displays of individual identity and social interaction. As an effective, socially accepted medium of self-definition, ancient graffiti may be compared to the modern use of social networks. This book shows that graffiti, a very ancient practice long hidden behind modern disapproval and street culture, have been integral to literacy and self-expression throughout history. Graffiti bear witness to social events and religious practices that are difficult to track in normative and official discourses. This book addresses graffiti practices, in cultures ranging from ancient China and Egypt through early modern Europe to modern Turkey, in illustrated short essays by specialists. It proposes a holistic approach to graffiti as a cultural practice that plays a key role in crucial aspects of human experience and how they can be understood.