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October 2, 2004

GRAFFITI WORLD... The Bar Has Been Set And It's Now Pretty Fuckin' High

For the last few months we've been hearing terrific things about an upcoming book on street art and graffiti called GRAFFITI WORLD: STREET ART FROM FIVE CONTINENTS. The book was conceived and put together by Nicholas Ganz and edited by Tristan Manco. Nicholas is a graffiti artist himself who lives in Germany and Tristan, who many of you will know from the Wooster site, is a graphic designer from Bristol. Tristan is also the author of two other amazing books on this subject, Stencil Graffiti and most recently, Street Logos.

So last week while in London, Sam Clark, the designer of the book, showed us a preview copy. To say that we were blown away by GRAFFITI WORLD would be a massive understatement. Sam's layouts are spectacular and the work that Nicholas and Tristan have put into the book is remarkable. With over 2,000 meticulously laid out photographs, the book showcases the work of over 180 artists from all over the world. Some you will know from the Wooster website, but many of them you will not.

In our minds, GRAFFITI WORLD is by far the best book ever to come out on graffiti and street art. The main reason for this is the sheer magnitude and quality of the photographs. They are amazing. The art on each and every page is absolutely stunning. Graffiti World sets the bar so high, that it will be hard for others to "one up" it. The book is so packed with art that it can take you days to absorb it all. We're still going through it. So without trying to sound like a cheesy book critic, our advice to you is that if there's one art book to get this winter, this is the one.

And here's one additional reason why:

The retail price in Europe for GRAFFITI WORLD is only 20 pounds. In the States you can pre-order the book on Amazon for $24.00 USD. When we asked Sam why (and how) the book could have a price of only 20 pounds (most publishers would have charged well over $100 for it) he mentioned that one of the main reasons for this was the generosity of the artists themselves. The community of artists around the world were kind enough to provide thousands of photographs without taking a fee, and this savings was passed on to the buyer. So big up not only to Nicholas, Tristan, Sam, their publishers at Thames and Hudson, but also to all of the artists!

One other thing that we thought was cool, was that 600 copies will be published in hand painted boxes by a group of artists including Paris, Adam Neate, Kid Acne, Nick Walker, Other, and Above. Here are a few samples:

Other

Adam Neate


Kid Acne
Above


Nick Walker


Paris
In the US, the book will be published later this month by Abrams. One nice touch that they did was to turn the cover into a large fold out poster...

Posted by marc at 8:34 AM in |

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