Six case studies, conducted in New York City, Trenton, and Jersey City, explore how graffiti murals are created and what role they play in cities where buffing illegal graffiti is a lucrative business. The author interviewed people affected on a daily basis by the murals at sites around the metropolitan area, including property owners who have welcomed the muralists in hopes that the artwork would serve as a deterrent to vandalism--and provide a more aesthetically pleasing alternative to buffing. This analysis, informed by cultural Marxism and supported by street photography, suggests a radical departure from traditional New York City policy: instead of spending money exclusively on the elimination of illegal graffiti, resources should also be devoted to the creation of graffiti murals. In the end, graffiti removal teams and mural promoters are pursuing the same goal: making the city a more visually appealing place.

This comprehensive and visual history of graffiti in Los Angeles examines the myriad styles and techniques used by writers today.A.Us most prolific and infamous writers provide insight into the lives of these fugitive artists.

A study of an artist and his art that proliferates over north Los Angeles

The wild, ramshackle streets of New Orleans tell a rich story of life, loss, celebration, and change. Winding through her veins-where rambling oak trees drenched in Spanish moss tower over uneven sidewalks-you discover colorful shotgun houses, doorknobs fashioned as skulls, the sweet smell of Southern Satsumas, and an unrestrained year-round celebration of music, culture, and art peppered with plenty of human characters. It's a celebration that has drawn visitors from all over the world and has made New Orleans a hotspot for creative types to live, work, and play. It is also home to two of the most controversial and accessible genres of art: street art and graffiti. The walls-even the ones that are blank or bombed by tags-are drenched in history and stand as witnesses to the city's resilience. They are pages torn from a book about the Crescent City, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot.

The Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art integrates and reviews current scholarship in the field of graffiti and street art. Thirty-seven original contributions are organized around four sections: History, Types, and Writers/Artists of Graffiti and Street Art; Theoretical Explanations of Graffiti and Street Art/Causes of Graffiti and Street Art; Regional/Municipal Variations/Differences of Graffiti and Street Art; and, Effects of Graffiti and Street Art. Chapters are written by experts from different countries throughout the world and their expertise spans the fields of American Studies, Art Theory, Criminology, Criminal justice, Ethnography, Photography, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Visual Communication. The Handbook will be of interest to researchers, instructors, advanced students, libraries, and art gallery and museum curators. This book is also accessible to practitioners and policy makers in the fields of criminal justice, law enforcement, art history, museum studies, tourism studies, and urban studies as well as members of the news media. The Handbook includes 70 images, a glossary, a chronology, and the electronic edition will be widely hyperlinked.

DIVAn authoritative guide to the most significant artists, schools, and styles of street art and graffiti around the world/div

With 600 stunning photographs, this comprehensive book showcases more than three decades of street art in San Francisco's legendary Mission District. Beginning in the early 1970s, a provocative street-art movement combining elements of Mexican mural painting, surrealism, pop art, urban punk, eco-warrior, cartoon, and graffiti has flourished in this dynamic, multicultural community. Rigo, Las Mujeres Muralistas, Gronk, Barry McGee (Twist), R. Crumb, Spain Rodriguez, the Billboard Liberation Front, Swoon, Sam Flores, Neckface, Shepard Fairey, Juana Alicia, Os Gemeos, Reminesce, and Andrew Schoultz are among the many artists who have made the streets of the Mission their public gallery. Essays and commentaries by insiders involved with the movement document the artistic, social, and political forces that have shaped Mission Muralismo.

A must-have for any street art enthusiast, this book presents the most mind blowing examples of renegade creativity in San Francisco. San Francisco's vibrant street art scene exists in areas off the city's well-worn tourist paths. The alleyways and hidden side streets of the Haight, the Tenderloin, and especially the Mission district's Clarion Alley offer unexpected treats to visitors lucky enough to stumble upon them. For more than five years, photographer Steve Rotman has obsessively documented this scene as it evolved on walls, sidewalks, billboards, fences, doors, and other public spaces. Culled from thousands of images, the result is a collection of work that attests to the artists' personal and stylistic diversity, from Mars1's robotic depictions of alternate universes which reflect the local counterculture spirit, to Neck Face's whimsically ghoulish creatures that serve as a testament to entrepreneurial hipsterdom, to Bigfoot's friendly green primates inspired by the area's rich graffiti culture. San Francisco's charm as an international destination also causes foreign artists to contribute to the street dialogue--Brazilian duo Os Gemeos, Londoner D*Face and German painter Dome have all graced the city's walls with their unique points of view. An enterprising photographer, Rotman has forged relationships with many of these often-reclusive artists, allowing him access to some of the lesser-known corners of the street art world.

The Egyptian Revolution that began on 25 January 2011 immediately gave rise to a wave of popular political and social expression in the form of graffiti and street art, phenomena that were almost unknown in the country under the old regime. Mia Gröndahl, the photographer of Gaza Graffiti: Messages of Love and Politics and Tahrir Square: The Heart of the Egyptian Revolution, has followed and documented the constantly and rapidly changing graffiti art of the new Egypt from its beginnings, and here in more than 400 full-color images celebrates the imagination, the skill, the humor, and the political will of the young artists and activists who have claimed the walls of Cairo and other Egyptian cities as their canvas. From the simplest hand-written messages, through stencils and martyr portraits, to the elaborate murals of Mohamed Mahmoud Street, the messages on the walls are presented in themed sections-Revolution & Freedom, Egyptian & Proud, Cross & Crescent, Martyrs & Heroes-punctuated by interviews with some of the individual artists whose work has broken fresh ground.

When Yarn Bombing was first published in 2009, the idea that knitted and crocheted objects could be used as a political act of resistance was brand new. Ten years and thousands of pink "pussy" hats later, the art of knit and crochet graffiti has entered the public zeitgeist - a cultural phenomenon that shows no sign of slowing down. Yarn bombing is an international guerrilla movement that started underground and is now embraced by crochet and knitting artists of all ages, nationalities, and genders. Its practitioners create stunning works of art out of yarn, then "donate" them to public spaces as part of a covert plan for world yarn domination, or fashion them into personal political statements. Yarn Bombing the book is a wildly colorful guide to covert textile street art around the world; it also includes over 20 amazing patterns, provides tips on how to be as stealthy as a ninja, demonstrates how to orchestrate a large-scale textile project, and offers revealing information necessary to design your own yarn graffiti tags. This tenth anniversary edition includes a new foreword by the authors and a new chapter that includes many infamous examples of yarn bombing over the past ten years. Subversive and beguiling, this new edition of Yarn Bombing demonstrates that the phenomenon of knit and crochet graffiti is more relevant than ever, especially in these troubled times.