Art Basel Miami Beach starts today. I am sadly not there this year. To make myself feel better, I’m going to share some photos I’ve taken at the show over the years. Buckle up!
Art Basel Miami Beach starts today. I am sadly not there this year. To make myself feel better, I’m going to share some photos I’ve taken at the show over the years. Buckle up!
I headed out to Smith College for When in Rome: Prints & Photographs, 1550–1900 this past weekend and I thought it was a great show. I’m a nut for Rome and I love Piranesi so I was predisposed to enjoy the show. Still, it’s really well put together. The way that they paired works from different eras and media together to show how la citta eterna has changed over time is fascinating. I found myself poring over images, trying to match landmarks. Being able to compare and contrast the different views was a real treat.
The rest of the collection is worth seeing, as well. Works by Bellows, Sargent, and Eakins were among the highlights for me of the strong American collection.
Time is running out for the When in Rome exhibit, but if you’ve got the time, it’s worth the effort to get out there to check it out.
Looking at the above view every day I realized some of you might find it interesting and, instead of just sharing a photo (or two, as that’s not everything in my library of graffiti and street art books) I thought it would be cool to write a little bit about the books that are on my bookshelf.
Who doesn’t need a big, chunky Shepard Fairey retrospective book on their bookshelf. I picked this up at the opening of the retrospective show at the ICA Boston.
I really appreciate the vibe of this book from ESPO/Stephen Powers. It’s hard to write about this stuff, as a graffiti writer, without it falling apart in one way or another. His sense of humor, passion for the subject matter and the fact that he was able to reach out to people he knew and respected to fill out the roster of people covered allowed him to sidestep any issues and come out with a legit classic.
IF you like Banksy, this is a pretty good document of his earlier career. It doesn’t cover the later, larger scale antics and installations, but that might be for the best, anyway. There’s a lot to like about his work before he got all “international art sensation” on us.
A great document from CARNAGE NYC of Banksy the “international art sensation” and his month=long residency in New York. A phenomenal book on a true media and art phenomenon.
With a page or two on every artist covered, there’s no depth in this monster tome. The breadth (five continents!) more than makes up for it.
I love this book. It might be too weird for the average civilian.
The classic of all classics. The one-two punch of this book and the Style Wars documentary changed my life forever.
The exhibition catalog from the Art in the Streets graffiti and street art show at LA’s MOCA. That was a great show and the catalog is well-worth checking out.
This is a great book. Read it from cover to cover and you’ll have a legit understanding of the history of American graffiti. I’m sure there are people in every city covered that can quibble with things the way we can quibble with some things as they’re portrayed in the Boston section, but the reality is, it’s a good representation of what went on. I expect the same is also true of the other cities covered.
The amount of crap that I saw Caleb take just in terms of the Boston section was enough to make me respect this effort immensely, even beyond the actual scale of the undertaking. Setting yourself up to hear it from every writer in America who feels slighted that they weren’t included is no joke.
In case you didn’t know James and Karla Murray are really great at what they do. They were an early Flickr follow for me and that paid off over the years, big-time.
This book captures a vibrant era in New York’s big-wall graffiti scene as the internationalization and internetization of the scene came to maturity with New York as the focus.
An incredible record of the diehards fighting against the MTA during clean train era. I’m not sure how well this book would translate to the uninitiated, but to writers and people who know the subculture, this book is a must-see.
We’re blessed we had people like Martha Cooper around to recognize the significance of what was going on at the time in NYC and had the good sense to document it. A great record of a time and place that changed the entertainment and arts worlds forever.
If Subway Art changed my life, Spraycan Art coming along a few years later cemented those changes into something permanent. This book changed the way I look at graffiti and opened my eyes to what the world was doing. I knew what I was seeing in Boston every day and then what was coming out of New York and making it into mass media. Everything else was a mystery before Spraycan Art.
This is a great introduction to the vandalism side of the equation, featuring interviews and photos from a number of big-time vandals.
That’s the tally for now. I’ll keep adding on as I add more books so watch Twitter for updates.
If you find yourself in Arles and you’re looking for lunch, I’d gladly recommend Cuisine de comptoir. If you get into town via the train and do the common sites in town (the Roman arena, theater and the van Gogh sites), it’s at the far end of your walking itinerary. We had a classic Provençal lunch of tartines and a half carafe of rose. You should do the same if you find yourself there. We’ve gone tartine crazy since we’ve been back.
As I mentioned, I just spent a week in France. I stayed in Paris for a couple of nights and then spent the rest of the time in Avignon. On of our side-trips from Avignon was to the incredible Roman aqueduct at Pont du Gard. If, like me, you enjoy a Roman ruin or two, it’s a can’t-miss attraction. It’s also a can’t-miss attraction if you like the great outdoors as the aqueduct sits in an incredible natural site with miles of walking and hiking trails and several large sections of riverside beach. Every drive in the area is pretty, and if you’re not driving it’s easy to get to (if you time it properly) for just a couple euros from Avignon or Nimes by bus.
The bus from Avignon (the A15) leaves from the bus depot, right next to Gare Avignon Centre. The Rick Steves Provence book mentions an Ibis Hotel. Which is valid, except there are two on that street. The one you want is next to the Train Station. Make sure you keep your ticket, if you reuse it you get a discount on your next ride.
It’s well worth the time and nominal (7-8 Euro) admission fee.
Here are some photos.
