In the text that accompanies this bilingual book (which is better left unread) artist Barry McGee claims that in the past 10 years, it would have been impossible for any resident of Milan to miss the work of graffiti artist Dumbo. Though the book presents no evidence of the prolific efforts it would take to meet that claim, it does offer an enjoyable photo-essay of Dumbo’s life and Italian graffiti culture. (more…)

Punk music, and its surrounding culture, has always been most effective with a simple, straightforward approach. Author and musician Timothy Findlen, along with photographer Abby Banks, spent three months driving cross-country to visit and photograph sixty-five punk houses—communal, low-rent houses typically crammed full of punks, squatters, and artists. The end result is PUNK HOUSE, a collection of 300 full color photos and three short essays. (more…)

Dave Thompson is trying to seduce you. And it’s not with restless nymphomaniacs or yielding flesh; it’s with something a lot more potent—nostalgia.

In Black and White and Blue, he laments, “in the stags as much as the real world, it is the relationship between two people that flavors the sex that follows…in latter movies [the lovers] are simply objects on the end of their genitalia.” (more…)

On May 9, 1974 the Pennsylvania Gazette published an editorial regarding the lack of unity in the colonies. The author, Benjamin Franklin, also provided a woodcut drawing of a snake cut into eight initialed parts (one for each colonial government) with the text “Join, or Die” underneath. The article’s politics were ignored, but the drawing lived on, with modifications, to become a rallying point for different political causes. (more…)

In the 1970s German artist Joseph Beuys, famous for his public performances and theories on art, politics, and society, developed the term Social Sculpture. The term, which became monumentally influential and continues to simmer in both the high and low art worlds alike, investigates “how we mold and shape the world in which we live” and led to the equally famous saying, “Everyone an Artist.” For a week in 1974, Beuys performed I Like America and America Likes Me by staying in a New York City gallery with a live coyote—it was his symbolic effort to repair the damage done to Native Americans. (more…)

Books routinely fall out of vogue and slip out of print. Non-fiction books are especially vulnerable, discarded when their subjects lose popularity or when more updated information becomes available. Regardless of the innovation, mastery, or irreproducibility of their stories, these books are doomed to obscurity in labyrinthine secondhand bookstores or among the dusty, stamped stacks of libraries. When Prophecy Fails is one of these books. (more…)

In the intro, Robert Christgau says about making the selections for the book, “When I said I was on the hunt for writing, I wasn’t kidding.” He wasn’t. There are pages and pages of rock criticism in a gamut of styles ranging from journalism to Chris Ryan’s e-mail rants written in all caps. A collection of essays by eminent writers about eminent musicians, this book could be a load of pretentious crap—but the book sidesteps this danger because the writers clearly revere the musicians and the musicians clearly love their art. (more…)

There’s no need to travel to see great Japanese artists when you can find them right in your city. That’s what co-author Eric C. Shiner discovered when the Japan Society asked him to put together an exhibit. Making a Home, based on the exhibit for the Japan Society’s centennial, flaunts the artwork of 33 Japanese-born contemporary artists living in New York. Each artist has a section containing an article and photographs on his/her work and interview excerpts. (more…)

In 1917, the Imperial War Museum (IWM) was founded in London to honor victims of World War I. Author James Aulich introduces L.R. Bradley, Keeper of War Publicity at the IWM in 1917, in the introduction to War Posters. Bradley began a collection of war publicity paraphernalia—advertisements, postcards, cartoons—that, in time, would grow to be the most comprehensive collection of its kind. (more…)

Neasden Control Centre (NCC) is the British design agency of Steve Smith. Smith, who is in his early thirties and lives in Brighton, maintaining a secret identity similar to other artists working in the genre of street-art-inspired design. Smith refers to his work as “visual rants;” his work shows an obvious background in experimental street art and cut-and-paste ‘zine making. (more…)