Soho Walls: Beyond Graffiti

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Robinson, a former community organizer, spent 10 years photographing the graffiti, posters and stencil art slapped down helter-skelter on outdoor surfaces of Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood. As he writes in the book's mostly gratuitous introduction, ``Nowhere else are there walls so full of creative and original art.'' The 85 vivid color reproductions here are in general a compelling visual record. Although he does not look at graffiti from a sociological perspective, Robinson shows how form, hue and texture enliven city streets. Some of the images are delicate compositions in soft colors, like the small pink figure holding an umbrella stenciled onto a crumbling white door panel. Others are arresting: crude Day-Glo faces; words or pictures spray-painted on dirty brick walls. Crazy scribblings; theater posters; painted bats, witches and dogs; personal manifestos, political statements--all are game for Robinson's lens. And signs of transformation became an appealing part of his work. In one picture the torn edges of a poster ripple like waves. (Sept.)

Library Journal

Art is everywhere in SoHo, an area south of Houston Street in lower Manhattan. Robinson here photographs its wall art. Unlike the much-analyzed graffiti of the 1970s, an inner-city rebellion with spray cans, SoHo walls are layered in endless, short-lived collages of torn posters, stenciled messages, and ambiguous pictograms that form accidental abstractions. If there are visual formulas at work here, they are secrets held by the makers of these ragged images, who rarely sign their work yet favor frequent repetition of personal words and logos. Robinson's excellent introduction helps to unravel some of the pictorial enigmas shown in this book. By capturing this sampling of contemporary visual urban life, he has preserved wall art that vanishes quickly. Highly recommended for academic, museum, and public library collections.-- David Bryant, Belleville P.L., N.J.