|
Grffiti World Street Art from Five Continents 
I ordered Grffiti World Street Art from Five Continents
but I have not received it?
Narrow, and Pretentios Samping of part of the Graffiti Culture 
Graffiti World fails where it shines the most: pretending to be the most comprehensive collection up to date of graffiti related art.
The dellusion of offering a quasi encyclopedic work should be enough to deride what is a coffee table book at best. It offers a large selection of artists each given typically one or two page spreads, with a small paragraph ranging from the generic, to the gratuitous, and occasionally also insightful.
A brief historic overview serves also in part to frame the work, and while it tries to broaden the scope across centuries and continents it quickly narrows itself down to the inevitable and predictable graffiti developed in New York in the late 70's and 80's that has influenced generations. Not that it delves in any depth into why or exactly how it happened, and the ways in which it became such an iconic reference, but it is perfunctorily used to narrow down the actual scope of the book and the work offered.
While there are some glaring omissions and random picks, it is true that it offers a typical selection of some of the most recognized artist in this segment, but that it is not its biggest flaw. "Street Art From Five Continents" is the worst lie that the book does not even pretend to hold very well. The volume is structured around two large parts, one for the Americas (which is still predominantly USA based) and one to Europe, the rest of the continents are lumped into a small section towards the end of the book called "The Rest of the World" . And while the brief paragraphs dedicated to each depicted country are relatively adequate, these are also fairly general and often instead of adding much to the dialogue risk feeding stereotypes.
Whether a marketing decision, or a creative one, pretending to tell stories about a holistic approach to graffiti and urban art hurts badly a book that otherwise offers a decent sampling of some areas of urban culture in a couple of world regions.
Best graffiti book I've seen so far 
This is a fantastic book for anyone who wants to really learn about the graffiti movement, and see literally hundreds of pictures of the art form, on walls all over the world. You can see commonalities and themes that emerge, and get the sense that this is an art form that's here to stay, with enduring human value. The book is creatively wrapped in a nifty poster you can unfold and hang on your wall. I'm an art teacher, and I consider this book a great classroom resource.
No good.
Horrible. Not happy with Seller. I never even received the book, way after it was supposed to be shipped.
Overwhelming
First of all, there's no way you can look through this book in one sitting -- there's an exhausting amount of art in this book. A lot of the artwork is so intricate that you could spend minutes to hours studying and analysing the pieces. Although I bought this as a gift for someone else, I did get a chance to look through the book before giving it away. What I liked was that the street art wasn't just a collection of idiotic, poorly written names on walls (I hate tagging). Rather, these pieces were often thought-provoking political and social commentaries, or just genuine pieces of art. I really didn't get a chance to read any of the text, but even if it was all complete gibberish, the photos of the artwork were enough to make this a truly great book.
|
|
