Graffiti NYC [Turtleback]

Hugo Martinez (Author), Nato (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2007

New York City is where the quintessential contemporary people's art of graffiti was born. The top "writers" go "all city" when their tags can be seen throughout the five boroughs. This exhilarating selection of their work, assembled by Hugo Martinez, a leading authority on the history of street art in NYC, takes the reader on an "all-city" tour of New York, displaying the extraordinary range of its taggers and bombers. More than two hundred photographs showcase the artwork of the most prominent names of the past five years, including CASE 2, KEZ, MOSCO, SKUF, VFR, and MQ. As graffiti comes to be embraced as a medium in its own right, its most important practitioners in NYC confirm the power and creativity of this vital contemporary language.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'[Martinez] is an impresario of graffiti'The Londonist online, February 2007

About the Author

HUGO MARTINEZ is the director of the ALL CITY project in New York, developing installations and exhibitions featuring the most significant historical and contemporary graffiti artists. NATO, who is now a photographer, was a New York graffiti writer, "King" of the Number 7 line, and the graffiti columnist for the bi-monthly magazine/catalogue YRB. ANTONIO ZAYA is an editor and curator, who lives in Girona, Spain.

Product Details

• Turtleback: 151 pages
• Publisher: Prestel Publishing (January 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3791336738
• ISBN-13: 978-3791336732
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,242,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Street Smarts, December 11, 2008

By 

Michael Boyle (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Graffiti NYC (Turtleback)

GRAFFITI NYC looks at graffiti, one of the most controversial, and certainly the most prevalent art forms to have manifested itself in the last fifty years. Through text and images graffiti's `ground zero', New York City, comes alive through the eyes of Martinez, who has been part of the `scene' for more than thirty years developing and documenting the cities street art since its inception nearly 40 years ago. His work, along with that of artist and photographer NATO and editor/curator Antonio Zaya, highlights the vocation of over 150 of today's best contemporary graffiti artists, or `writers'. There are quotations from a wide range of individuals involved, including those occupied in law enforcement, cultural commentary, and politics, along with those of the artists themselves. This is, without a doubt, an unapologetic celebration of contemporary graff. "The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance"

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars GRAFFITI NYC, July 31, 2008

By 

VOID:ALT/ABM "Cletis" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Graffiti NYC (Turtleback)

Mr. Martinez hits the spot with this true-to-the-game pictorial of recent and current writers in NYC. It's drenched and drippy with no-excuses, raw street, straight up. The quotes by various writers are just as raw. Only trouble I had was navigating from the index to un-numbered pages when I wanted to reference particular photos. Aside, a must-have for anyone down with the most relevant art form of our day.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good book., May 23, 2008

By 

Nathan L. Puza "natepuza" (Columbia, SC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Graffiti NYC (Turtleback)

If you are looking for a book about pretty, glossy full color murals and pieces, don't buy this book. If you want a book about dirty, illegal, real graffiti, keep reading. The book is more of a photo essay on bombing, and the quotes throughout are great. I would recommend the book to graffiti fans, more casual readers should probably check out graffiti world or something like that.