Go Buy This: Robert Clarke – “Seven Years with Banksy”

“There have a been a few different books written about Banksy in recent years featuring images of his work around the world. This latest release ‘Seven Years with Banksy’ by one of Banksy’s associates, Robert Clarke is different as it profiles Banksy ‘the person’ detailing their relationship over a period of time. The Author gives an interesting insight into the life, mind and work of Banksy through the experiences that he and the author Robert Clarke shared together during Banksy’s formative years.”

“Clarke takes us through his first encounters with Banksy, which took place in a hotel in New York in the 1990s, and candidly describes how his friendship with this young English artist developed. Along the way, readers will discover more about the ever-mysterious Banksy – what makes him tick, why he does what he does, and why he ultimately rejects fame in favour of anonymity, setting him apart from many other popular artists of our time. This extraordinary memoir follows Banksy’s development over these years and describes a variety of escapades he shared with the author as their friendship developed, from late-night excursions into London Zoo to Millennium Eve in their home town of Bristol. – The book is a must for anyone interested in the mystery man behind the stencils”

Purchase the book now directly from the source HERE or you can wait until September 1^st to buy it from Amazon.

Banksy at work at Walls on Fire, Bristol 1998

Video: Camille Rose Garcia's Snow White

A spectacular original spin on the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Harper Design’s "Snow White" has been magically reimagined by contemporary artist Camille Rose Garcia. Garcia who also did something similar in 2010 with the New York Times bestseller "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" transforms the  vintage fairy tale with her distinctive dark and whimsical illustrations. The book will be released February 28th but in the meantime you can Check out the video below to see Garcia working on some of the characters at her studio. 

Go Buy This: Scott Campbell - “If You Don't Belong, Don't Be Long” (Signed)

Brooklyn tattoo and fine artist Scott Campbell is releasing his first book via Rizzoli next Tuesday February 14th entitled “If You Don't Belong, Don't Be Long”.  For those who are big fans of the artists work there is a special being offered for a limited time via OHWOW that is pretty exciting. For $100 you will get a signed edition of the book with some personalized sketches included. Looking at the examples below Scott goes far beyond the usual doodle that many artists offer up in similar deals giving you an original piece of art when it’s all said and done.

  “Adored by his patrons and admired by his peers, Scott Campbell is known not only for his amazing technique and vision as a tattoo artist, but also as a respected fine artist on the contemporary scene. Both Campbell's artwork and tattoo work are informed by timeless trends of "new antiquarian" style, nineteenth-century hand-lettering, kitsch, and classic tattoo flash.”

“Campbell renders fleeting trends into timeless masterpieces not only on canvas and in sculpture, but also on skin. This book captures both, exemplifying how his tattoo work informs his artwork and vice versa. “

Hardcover, 8.5 x 11.75 inches, 208 pages, fully illustrated.

To purchase the signed book click HERE.
For those who don't have the extra cash to spend you can purchase a retail copy HERE.

Video: TateShots - Maurice Sendak

Maurice Bernard Sendak is an American writer and illustrator best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are. In the compelling interview below for TateShorts Maurice discuses his life’s work, influences, the impact of Where The Wild Things Are, his obsession with William Blake and his views on selling out, seems like a real interesting character with strong convictions.

Video: Skateboarding VS Architecture: A Study of Public Space and Materiality in Auckland City

In this video the relationship between skateboarders and architecture in the city is explored. Through a series of interviews with city council members, architects and skaters, opposing views and opinions are shared on what defines a public space, what it should be used for, the measures being implemented to restrict areas from being ridden, the monetary value involved in both preventing skateboarding and encouraging it via the introduction of artificial environments as a substitute to the streets.

Skateboarding VS Architecture: A Study of Public Space and Materiality in Auckland City from SwineTrotters on Vimeo.

For further exploration into the subject matter I recommend a book called “Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body”  a book I read while attending university in the U.K. by Ian Bordensc.  The book was the first detailed study of the urban phenomenon of skateboarding and looks at skateboarding history from the surf-beaches of California in the 1950s, through the purpose-built skateparks of the 1970s, to the street-skating of the present day and shows how skateboarders experience and understand the city through their sport. Dismissive of authority and convention, skateboarders suggest that the city is not just a place for working and shopping but a true pleasure-ground, a place where the human body, emotions and energy can be expressed to the full.

The huge skateboarding subculture that revolves around graphically-designed clothes and boards, music, slang and moves provides a rich resource for exploring issues of gender, race, class, sexuality and the family. As the author demonstrates, street-style skateboarding, especially characteristic of recent decades, conducts a performative critique of architecture, the city and capitalism. Anyone interested in the history and sociology of sport, urban geography or architecture will find this book riveting.

Video: Robert Crumb - "The Complete Record Cover Collection"

This is a pretty great video focusing on Robert Crumb’s record cover art. Robert Crumb first began drawing record covers in 1968 when Janis Joplin, a fellow Haight Ashbury denizen, asked him to provide a cover for her album Cheap Thrills. It was the only “in” the artist  needed, especially since he had been fascinated with record covers-particularly for the legendary jazz, country, and old-time blues music of the 1920s and 1930s-since he was a teen. This early collaboration proved very successful and Crumb went on to draw hundreds of record covers for both new artists and largely forgotten masters. So remarkable were Crumb's artistic interpretations of these old 78 rpm singles that the art itself proved influential in their rediscovery in the 1960s and 1970s.  Check out the video below and make sure to pick up “R. Crumb: The Complete Record Cover Collection”, a must-have for any lover of graphics, music or Crumb's unique and perverted sense of humor.

MORE INFO: http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=22322

Published by W. W. Norton & Company
Independent Publishers Since 1923

Directed by John Heneghan
Featuring Eden Brower

The Songs:
1. Sing Song Girl - Leroy Sheild (1930)
2. Some Of These Days - Cab Calloway (1930)
3. Lindberg Hop - Memphis Jug Band (1928)
4. Down On Me - Eddie Head And His Family (1930)
5. Chasin' Rainbows - R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders (1976)
6. Singing In The Bathtub - R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders (1978)
7. So Sorry Dear - Eden & John's East River String Band Featuring R. Crumb (2010)

The East River String Band on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/suprovalco

Video: Phantom Tollbooth Documentary

I am a big fan of the classic children’s book 'The Phantom Tollbooth' written by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer so my interest was peaked when I discovered that someone was making a documentary on the book to coincide with it’s 50th anniversary. Hannah Jayanti is the director of the upcoming documentary and since Jayanti and her team have been funding the film themselves for almost a year now, they decided to start a kickstarter to help them cover the cost of post production. Amazingly, the project was funded in only a couple of days. Take a look a the trailer for the upcoming film below...

Phantom Tollbooth Documentary Trailer from Phantom Tollbooth Documentary on Vimeo.

Read: Chromatic: The Crossroads of Color and Music

At nearly 400 pages of full-color artwork and editorial, Chromatic: The Crossroads of Color and Music by Scott Morrow, is a dynamic print presentation of independent musicians and artists who are using or exploring color in unorthodox ways. It’s a highly saturated, prismatic presentation of some of today’s most adventurous underground artists, including Sonny Kay, Seripop, John Zorn, Daft Punk, Sigur Rós front-man Jónsi, Blue Man Group, The Zhou Brothers, Ratatat, Holy Fuck, Damon Locks of The Eternals, Rob Mazurek, NewVillager, and many others. Get yours while supplies last.

Read This: Justin Pearson - "How To Lose Friends And Irritate People"

"In his new book, How To Lose Friends and Irritate People, Justin Pearson reveals his misadventures with two DJ duos borrowing him as a frontman, lending some “punk” street cred to their music. Known for being part of bands like The Locust, All Leather, and Retox, as well as the owner of Three One G Records, Justin has paved the way for bizarre, abrasive and political music, while pushing the envelope of what is expected or what can be done in a band. The Bloody Beetroots and Designer Drugs approached him to sing on their albums, and what came out of those two experiences is both pathetic and hilarious. From being forced to lip sync at Australian festivals in front of thousands, to being lost in the woods somewhere in Pennsylvania at a music video shoot gone wrong, Justin questions not only the DJ’s motives, but his own as well. Embracing actual musical instrumentation instead of laptop playlists, Justin trudges through the murky waters of musical capitalism."

How To Lose Friends and Irritate People is comprised of two stories, “Now I Will Make a Sound For You to Hear, A Sound Without My Mouth” and “A Sucker is Born Every Minute” separately bound in each own’s book, as well as a flexi record in each book featuring All Leather “We Eat Gauche Caviar” and Ill Saint M “A Pig’s Orphan” (featuring Justin Pearson). All parts bound together as one, creating more than just a book, but a collectors item, artifact, and maybe even an all around “fuck you” to Kindles and digital downloads.

I read Justin's first book, From The Graveyard of the Ariousal Industry, and it was a lot of fun, if you haven't picked it up do so now as it's soon to be out of print

Purchase the Novellas HERE, I ordered my copy today.

Artists Space Bookstore

Artists Space is an alternative arts space founded in 1972, with the intent of providing a platform for young and emerging artists. Initially a pilot project for the New York State Council of the Arts, a string of landmark shows, including Douglas Crimp's Pictures (1977), and Michael Asher's Untitled (1988) quickly brought Artists Space to prominence as a venue for critical discussion and inquiry on contemporary artistic practices.

Even today Artists Space continues to run some of the more interesting and poignant programming in New York City. The space maintains a tight schedule of exhibitions while organizing lectures, screenings, discussion panels, the largest and earliest established artist registry in the world, as well as an arts education program for New York's public schools. The Artists Space bookstore is the most recent such endeavor. The store is still in the works, with talk spreading of a new space to open soon that will be devoted entirely to books.

What makes this bookstore unique is the way selections are made. Instead of having a buyer, Artists Space is asking a growing list of artists, writers, and people of interest to select 10 books for the store. The result is an divese selection of books, ranging from a coffee table monographs, to critical theory, philosophical texts, comic books and paperback novels. A few of my favorites are Michelle Bernstein's All the Kings Horses, selected by gallerist John Kelsey; David Robbins's The Velvet Grind, selected by Matthew Higgs, as well as a spot-on selection of fiction from Artists Space curator Richard Birkett.

A Nice Source Of Protein

"You will be surprised to learn how wonderful semen is in the kitchen"

-Author, Fotie Photenhauer.

With Natural Harvest: A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes you can learn how to make  cum brûlée and so much more, yeah I don't think I'd try any of this either! 

Read this



Arabic Graffiti (From Here to Fame Publishing, 2011) features breathtaking images generated by the fusion of Arabic calligraphy and Western graffiti. The book also provides invaluable insights into the rich social and political implications of the writings on the walls of such places as Bahrain, Beirut and Gaza.

Purchase the book here.

Native & Zen Two



Go the F@*k to Sleep!

Go the F**k to Sleep is a bedtime book narated by Samuel L. Jackson for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland. California Book Award-winning author Adam Mansbach’s profane, affectionate, and radically honest verses perfectly capture the familiar - and unspoken - tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night. In the process, he opens up a conversation about parenting, granting us permission to admit our frustrations and laugh at their absurdity.

Beautiful, subversive, and pants-wettingly funny, Go the F**k to Sleep is a book for parents new, old, and expectant. Due to its explicit language, you probably should not play it for your children.

Go the F**k to Sleep is available free for a limited time. Feel free to share the link to this page with tired parents and other people who could use a good swear and a laugh.

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