Elza Adamowicz presents an analysis of surrealist collage, both as a technique of cutting and pasting ready made material, and as a subversive and creative strategy. She considers verbal collage, pictorial collage, and the hybrids they generate, and discusses the works of Max Ernst and Andre Breton, as well as those of Aragon, Brunius, Eluard, Hugnet, Magritte, Peret, Styrsky and others. Focusing on the recycling of art-historical icons, the parodic reworking of narrative cliches, the concept of defamiliarisation of the banal, or the relations between part bodies and totalities, she offers close readings of individual collages, and links specific aspects of collage practice to central issues of surrealist aesthetic and political thought. Throughout this well illustrated study Adamowicz confronts the 'monstrous' nature of collage, grounded on excess and composed of irretrievable fragments and hovering signs.

In The City as Subject, Carolyn S. Loeb examines distinctive bodies of public art in Berlin: legal and illegal murals painted in West Berlin in the 1970s and 1980s, post-reunification public sculptures, and images and sites from the street art scene. Her careful analyses show how these developed new architectural and spatial vocabularies that drew on the city’s infrastructure and daily urban experience. These works challenged mainstream urban development practices and engaged with citizen activism and with a wider civic discourse about what a city can be. Loeb extends this urban focus to her examination of the extensive outdoor installation of the Berlin Wall Memorial and its mandate to represent the history of the city’s division. She studies its surrounding neighborhoods to show that, while the Memorial adopts many of the urban-oriented vocabularies established by the earlier works of public art she examines, it truncates the story of urban division, which stretches beyond the Wall’s existence. Loeb suggests that, by embracing more multi-vocal perspectives, the Memorial could encourage the kind of participatory and heterogeneous construction of the city championed by the earlier works of public art.

Street-cool visual artist-cum-nightlife guru, Andre Saraiva, whose life dovetails into graffiti subculture, chic jet-setting, and the fashion world, presents an autobiographical visual diary of sorts, a revealing window into the worlds he inhabits. Chances are that while you ve been strolling through the streets of Paris, London, New York, or Los Angeles, you may have caught a glimpse of Saraiva s signature graffiti of Mr. A on a random street wall. Or you may have seen him in the Banksy film, Exit Through the Gift Shop; spied him in the front rows of the Paris Fashion Week shows; or seen him at one of his many chic nightclubs. Graffiti Life is a never-before-seen look at the artist s many spheres through which he effortlessly moves: street culture, contemporary art, graphic design, photography, fashion, and nightlife. This visual journey is an interactive and striking object itself, with a vibrant pink cloth cover, Saraiva s distinctive handwriting in foil, and seven pop-ups he designed. It follows Saraiva s art/life trajectory, and includes his Instagram-worthy tags on the streets of Paris; countless silk-screened posters; paintings and sculpture; creative collaborations with Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Colette, and more.