GraffMuseum

To veterans of New York City life, an undercurrent of concern runs through the ongoing fiscal crisis, a worry that it could trigger disorder similar to what unfolded during the city’s last prolonged economic downturn. By the mid-1980s, New York had only just begun to emerge from a long decline (at least until the crack epidemic and another recession wreaked more havoc by the early 90s) in which neglect worsened conditions for impoverished neighborhoods, the homeless population surged and crime soared to record levels.

And while much in the city has changed in recent years – as illustrated by the calm reaction to the 2003 blackout compared to the mayhem that accompanied the 1977 power outage – the perception that the midnight hour morphs New York into a threatening metropolis still endures as conventional wisdom.

Not entirely without reason. In the so-called “city that never sleeps,” a 3:30 a.m. stroll in Times Square, even, reveals desolate sidewalks in a daunting landscape. Married co-authors Russell Leigh Sharman, a Brooklyn College anthropology professor who also published “The Tenants of East Harlem” in 2006, and writer Cheryl Harris Sharman spent one year plumbing the city’s overnights. They explain that when “…the day-dwellers lock themselves in against an accumulated fear of the night, the city slowly slouches into its own skin, revealing a vulnerability and an occasional mean streak to those who brave its darker side.”

Read more here: Some Work the Overnight While Others Decorate It- City Limits: News for NYC’s Nonprofit, Policy and Activist World

Tags: graffiti, graff, graffmuseum, sast, saster, streets are saying things, vandal squad, NYC, art, books, culture, hip hop

Graffiti has spread to the far corners of the earth and in the process has become the biggest art movement in history and every graffiti writer began his or her writing career with a tag. Developing an original, consistently written name is the primary act for a writer. The photos in Tag Town, dating back to the 60’s, introduce us to the origins of New York style graffiti. Tags and pieces share a common heritage and by understanding one, you can understand the other. For those who learn to read tags, a world of aesthetic expression and communication opens up. Tags are a universal language – the jazz of lettering. Tag Town also contains rare photos of work on the street by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf, artists whose tag-inspired work helped found the rapidly growing street art movement. The accompanying text is based on interviews with New York graffiti pioneers Blade, Part 1 and Snake 1. Martha Cooper has specialized in photographing urban art and architecture in New York City for thirty years.

Tags: graffiti, graff, graffmuseum, sast, saster, STREETS ARE SAYING THINGS, tags, books, photography, culture, hip hop, art, Martha Cooper, taggin

Street art is a global phenomenon, one of the most popular and hotly discussed areas of art-making on the contemporary scene. Developing out of the graffiti tradition of the 1980s it has now reached the mainstream through the work of artists like Banksy and Futura 2000, becoming the subject of best-selling books and commanding high prices at auction.

Cedar Lewisohn has written the first account of this visual revolution to trace its history from cave painting through to the vibrant art emerging today on the walls of London, Madrid and Sao Paolo, via Brassai’s photographs of 1920s Paris and Basquiat and Haring’s New York.

Superbly illustrated with over 120 colour photographs of street art from around the world, the book includes interviews with leading street art proponents of the last three decades, including Henry Chalfant, Lady Pink, Lee Quinones, Blek le Rat, Goldie, Mode 2, Barry McGee (Twist), Shephard Fairey (Obey), Futura 2000, Malcolm McClaren and Os Gemeos, taking the reader behind their “tags” to encounter the often mysterious figures who are transforming cities across the globe.

Design News - Tate Presents: Street Art - The Graffiti Revolution New Book Release - TAXI Design Network

Tags: graffiti, graff, graffmuseum, sast, saster, STREETS ARE SAYING THINGS, street art, art, book, Tate, Museum, culture

‘The End of the Jews, rather than being any kind of definitive end, [is really more] an end to an identity that is uncritical, that fits easily,” says Adam Mansbach of the title of his new book. “It stems from the uneasiness and the struggle of finding some way to inhabit either Judaism or family or artistry or any of these.”

Mansbach, 31, speaking to The Jerusalem Post by phone following the book’s release, describes his Jewish upbringing in Boston as secular, without much of a connection to traditional Judaism. He recounts how he dropped out of Hebrew school before his bar mitzva after a confrontation with a vocally racist teacher, and how he moved naturally toward the hip-hop scene.

“I grew up as a rapper and a DJ and graffiti writer and was very much involved in hip-hop culture, and my politics were largely formed through those experiences,” he says. Like several of his characters, he was a jazz roadie for a number of years, traveling all over the US with a jazz band.

“I had more black friends than white,” he says, adding that his family “didn’t really have a problem [with me] listening to hip-hop, particularly since I think they understood that it made me want to educate myself. They understood the connection between me listening to a Public Enemy song and then me going to my father’s bookshelf.”

Read more here…….Hip-hop Jew | Jerusalem Post

Tags: graff, graffiti, graffmuseum, books, jew, jews, Brooklyn, New York, NYC, sast, saster, streets are saying things, the end of the jews