Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo

Annice Jacoby, Editor

(Harry N. Abrams; US: Jun 2009)

 Amazon

Graffiti New York

Eric Felisbret, Luke Felisbret

(Harry N. Abrams; US: Oct 2009)

 Amazon

Coast to coast, your connoisseur of street art is covered in these two very smart books on the species’ timeless, irrepressible urge to ridicule, shock, provoke, entertain, mock, render beautiful or simply tag I WAS HERE (and if you saw this, you were, too). Graffiti New York claims this is the city where graffiti began. The Romans might say otherwise (heck, cave dwellers might contest the Romans), but in these times, the elevation of simple tagging to a complex art form as represented in New York is respected (by fellow graffiti artists, anyway) worldwide. Graffiti artists themselves, from the streets and from the galleries, lend word to the approximately 1,000 images here, giving context and critique to this most primal of art forms rendered gorgeous.

San Francisco’s Mission District boasts a greater concentration of street art than any other neighborhood in the world. You’ll get a glimpse of this here in over 500 archival and contemporary photographs. Neighborhood native and ‘mural aficionado’, Carlos Santana, provides the introduction to this colorful and at times, moving tour of cultural commentary You’ll see R. Crumb and Diego Rivera depicted here, along with a range of other talented street artists. Last time I was in the Mission District, I stayed in a crappy, pink stucco, roach infested hotel and slept, barely, to the sounds of fighting outside my window. This book makes me want to go back to that neighborhood and stay awhile and walk those streets again, but slowly, as if walking through a museum. Really.

—Karen Zarker

Doesn’t the Old English typeface say it all?  Loaded with pictures of pistols, Lickshot just screams bad ass. Lickshot, New-York based photographer Ben Watts’ photo scrapbook and travel diary, is an ideal stocking stuffer for the provocative-at-heart, not least your kid who just graduated from art school. Watts’ dynamic, renegade photography captures the primal in his subjects; a street theater of gang bangers, skate punks, metal heads, and entertainers including Heath Ledger, Benicio Del Toro, Guy Pearce, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg. The book also features an interview with Watts by Vanity Fair editor Ingrid Sischy that delves into Watts’ biography. These gun photos are in-your-face intense.

—Eleanore Catolico

44 Days and the Remaking of Iran

David Burnett

(National Geographic)

 Amazon

When you think about it, the legacy of the Iranian elections last year isn’t going to be anything that actually happened in Iran. The thing we’re all going to remember about that election is how profoundly it demonstrated the power of Twitter. One of the biggest selling points of Twitter at the time was that it was “the only way” to get information out of the country.  Reading 44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World you learn that during the Iranian revolution, photographer David Burnett had to smuggle his film out of the country by going to the airport and searching for “pigeons” who might be willing to carry it to Paris where they handed it off to a correspondent. The photographs still made it out, but their journey required physical, not digital ingenuity.

44 Days is an annotated compilation of the photographs he took during that time. The book chronicles the last days of the Shah’s rule, the protests and bloodshed that followed and the return of Ayatollah Khomenini. The photographs are accompanied by Burnett’s journal-like descriptions of each experience. Essentially, it’s a compilation of his Twitter stream, except, there was no Twitter. He writes objectively about the political situation, the emotions of the crowd and his own investigative journey. Burnett also writes about the relationship of the press to the government, and to the protesters.

—Rachel Balik

Kanye West Glow in the Dark

Kanye West

 Amazon

Whether you love him, hate him, or aren’t sure, Kanye West continued his reign as one of pop’s elite artists in 2009. Working with photographer Nabil Elderkin and introduced by an intimate interview with director Spike Jonze, West compiles his life circa 2008 into the comprehensive Glow in the Dark, cataloging his experiences chronologically using a dazzling array of hyper-color personal and concert photos, insightful captions, and a bonus CD with four backing tracks from the Glow in the Dark Tour.

Elderkin’s high-resolution photos are a real treat, printed beautifully and often spread across two pages. Jonze does his best to reach the heart of West’s divisive persona, such as getting West to reveal that he cried while playing the 2007 hit “The Good Life” during a difficult Brazil show, a sad irony considering his personal turmoil at the time. Fans of West will definitely love the sketches and backstage pictures from the immense tour, while the average pop consumer may enjoy his irreverent humor and expressive personality. Glow in the Dark might not convince you of West’s genius, but you’ll appreciate the sheer amount of labor and passion that goes into his work.

—Cyrus Fard

The Human Brain Book

Martyn Page

(DK; US: Aug 2009)

 Amazon

This is perfect, just perfect, for that person in your life who’s read Oliver Sacks or for that someone who loves the Annals in Science articles in the New Yorker—and is especially attracted to those articles on neurology. This is for the amateur anatomist who went to Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds when it was in town and strolled through the exhibit in quiet reverence.

When it comes right down to it, what we are, and who we are, can be distilled down to that very delicate, highly complex, amazing mass of gray matter, which weighs in at an average of three and one-fourth pounds. The brain’s anatomy, its physical and perceptual growth, what happens to it as it learns, when it suffers illness or injury, what constitutes personality, how we perceive the world—all is presented within historical timelines (e.g., brain surgeries, past and present; brain development, from fetus to senior citizen). Our sense of self, our sense of others, our sense of things outside of ourselves and others, our comprehension of objects and ideas, our ability to be athletes and artists are all rendered in a digestible yet brain-engaging format for the perpetually curious layperson with an interest in anatomy, psychology, and identity.

In addition to the gorgeous graphics in these comprehensive 256 pages, (and occasional pop culture examples, not without humor), the book comes with a DVD-ROM with some cool graphics and summarizing features to complement the text. That might appeal to those who haven’t yet made it to a Body Worlds exhibit. The rest of us will be completely absorbed between the pages of this book. Don’t interrupt the reader—for all its problem solving and fantasy-generating might, the brain can’t process two similar tasks (e.g., processing speech and processing text) at the same time.

AMAZON

—Karen Zarker

When you still have people fingering the chords to “Stairway to Heaven” at your local guitar shop or while playing (insert either Rock Band or Guitar Hero), that’s how you know the meaning of transcendence. Enter Led Zeppelin. Now, rare and never before released photos of the band from their early years as the New Yardbirds to their last performance in London 2007 have been compiled in Led Zeppelin: Good Times, Bad Times. With a foreword by Anthony DeCurtis, Led Zeppelin: Good Times, Bad Times provides a photographic history of the band as ultimate decadent figures of ‘70s culture. Die hard fans and newbies to Led Zeppelin would appreciate this visual lesson in rock and roll glory.

—Eleanore Catolico