Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution

Over the last decade, street art—art made in public spaces including graffiti, stickers, stencil art, and wheat-pasting— has become one of the most popular and hotly discussed areas of art practice on the contemporary scene. Developing out of the graffiti-writing tradition of the 1980s through the work of artists such as Banksy and Futura 2000, it has long since reached the mainstream. Street Art is the first measured, critical account of the development of this global phenomenon.

Tracing street art’s origins in cave painting through the Paris walls photographed by Brassai in the ’20s through the witty, sophisticated imagery found on city streets today, the book also features new and exclusive interviews with key figures associated with street art of the last 35 years, including Lady Pink, Barry McGee, Shepard Fairy, Futura 2000, Malcolm McLaren, Miss Van, and Os Gemeos. Street Art reveals the extent to which the walls and streets of cities around the world have become the birthplace of some of the most dynamic and inspirational art being made today.

Over the last decade, street art—art made in public spaces including graffiti, stickers, stencil art, and wheat-pasting— has become one of the most popular and hotly discussed areas of art practice on the contemporary scene. Developing out of the graffiti-writing tradition of the 1980s through the work of artists such as Banksy and Futura 2000, it has long since reached the mainstream. Street Art is the first measured, critical account of the development of this global phenomenon.

Tracing street art’s origins in cave painting through the Paris walls photographed by Brassai in the ’20s through the witty, sophisticated imagery found on city streets today, the book also features new and exclusive interviews with key figures associated with street art of the last 35 years, including Lady Pink, Barry McGee, Shepard Fairy, Futura 2000, Malcolm McLaren, Miss Van, and Os Gemeos. Street Art reveals the extent to which the walls and streets of cities around the world have become the birthplace of some of the most dynamic and inspirational art being made today.

Eric Linderman - Library Journal

There are many books available on graffiti, but most focus on specific places or time periods, or they are of the coffee-table variety with numerous photos but little content. Lewisohn, a London artist, attempts the first global history of street art and graffiti, which he defines as two distinct concepts. He dedicates too much of the text to pondering the differences between the two art forms-in short, he explains that graffiti are text based and appeal mainly to an inner circle of graffiti writers while street art is more pictorial and directed at a wider range of passersby. Although the book seems to aim for comprehensiveness, it has clear strengths and weaknesses. Lewisohn's discussions of New York City graffiti in the 1980s and its influence on street art in Brazil, Europe, and Australia are good, and his thoughts on the cultural differences between graffiti artists and people in academic art history are effective. However, a section on graffiti in antiquity is underdeveloped and perhaps unnecessary. Overall, this is recommended for academic and larger public libraries.

Cedar Lewisohn is an artist and writer based in London. His recent curated projects include Old Money at Glasgow’s Intermedia Gallery. Henry Chalfant is a world-famous photographer and videographer of urban culture. His photos are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh.