graf world
April 9th, 2008
Graffiti World: Street Art from Five Continents was a Christmas gift from my little sister. What took me until April 8th to pick it up? It’s heavy (weighs at least five pounds, hardcover, 376 pages)!! I’ve been traveling the past few months, and finally got to settle into it last night.
Over 2000 illustrations. Hard to choose the illest. What struck me was Eltono and Nuria Mora’s paintings of tuning forks and keys in Madrid. I love the simplicity, the contrast of bright colors among the old buildings. They reminded me of Zezão’s swirling patterns in the sewers of São Paulo: beauty against bleakness.
Faith 47 also has an exquisite touch, spraying her wispy designs across Cape Town’s harsh environment.
“It’s taking the stuff that everybody hates and nobody wants to see and making it more in their face. In South Africa, there are millions of people living in makeshift shacks….It’s so hard to see it all the time and not be able to change it. What can I do to save the fucking world? So I paint shacks.”
Graffiti World (HND Books, 2005) is a must-read for its vivid photography and interviews with 180 international street artists.
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Trigger: Graffiti World by Nicholas Ganz