The Mammoth Book of Street Art Paperback – November 27, 2012

The book is cool, the premise is just what I wanted. The book is really thick and small though so it's hard to hold it open and see everything. Some pictures stretch across pages too so it takes away from seeing the artwork.

While the images and the content of the book are wonderful the Kindle version is pointless. It won't allow you to zoom in or out so you can't see a full image. You will have to scroll left and right which is really dumb for an art book. I gave up, deleted the Kindle version and got the paper version instead. Shame on whoever did the Kindle transfer!

The normal screen for book purchase is devoid of any methods for downloading this book. Blank space where such things as, 'Buy', or 'Read for Free', usually reside for your use. It's like a, 'Billboard' ad for the book. I've never encountered this during the several years I have been avidly using my Kindle. Anybody?

I was apprehensive that the word mammoth in this book’s title suggested that a huge, unmanageable coffee table book would arrive. Fortunately, this is really a baby mammoth book. The book is compact and just slightly smaller than A5 (1). It is easily held in the hands. However, it is a fat baby mammoth at just under 450 glossy colour pages. The author, JAKe, is an insider. He is not anonymous and there is a picture of him at the back of the book, aerosol in hand, painting a mammoth on a wall. He comes from Hull and now lives in London. This book is about street art, the creators are called artists and they all have internet pages. This book is not about graffiti writers tagging their way across their urban environment (2).Except for a short introduction, this book consists of 73 entries, titled by artist name. These are not in alphabetical order, although they are mostly grouped by country (3). Each entry has the same format, but varies in length. Each entry has the artist’s name as the title, followed by their location and internet page. The left hand side of the first page contains a paragraph about the artist. At the foot of the first page is the name of the providers of the photographs that makeup the remainder of the entry.The front cover is by Aryz, who was born in the USA but lives in Spain. It is a massive painting on the side of multi-storey building. His entry in the book covers eight pages with six examples of his work, from Poland and Italy. The photographs were supplied by the artist. At the opposite end of the size scale are Slinkachu and Pablo Delgrado, who specialise in tiny figures or paintings in public spaces. Evol takes urban fixtures and paints them to look like East Berlin tower blocks. Slinkachu inspired Josef Foos, whose small cork people are scattered around Berlin. Blek le Rat was the original master of the stencil. He has an entry, as does Banksy, who was inspired by him. Banksy was also inspired by Nick Walker. Mobstr is represented by several stencilled texts on walls.C125 is included with one of his intricate stencils of the old and homeless. Conor Harrington, from Cork, is one of the most impressive entries. His street paintings of male figures could be straight out of a modernist painting exhibition. Malarky, influenced by the Barcelona street artists, has covered parts of London’s East End n colourful characters. He is given a ten page entry, as is Zosen, one of his Barcelona influences. Other colourful artists are Konor, also from Barcelona, Pez from Bogotá and Gola from Rimini._______________________________________________________________________________________(1) A5 is half of A4, the common size for paper in printers.(2) JAKe asks what street art is in the introduction ". . . So what exactly is the definition of street art and how does it differ from graffiti? No one seems able to agree. When I began work on this book I canvassed opinions from friends, writers and graff aficionados. I was told more than once, 'Street art is dead.' Mostly this was said to me by artists who have stopped hiding behind tags and pseudonyms and who now exhibit in galleries under their own names. But rather than accept the death of street art as a given, let's take its pulse. I could have filled a book twice or even three times the extent of this already weighty collection; that's not bad for a genre considered, by some at least, to be on its last legs." and further on in the introduction he compares graffiti with street art, ". . . I love graffiti and always will. If you'll forgive the analogy, let's think of graffiti as a moody rebellious teenager, unconcerned with approval from anyone but his or her peers, and street art as the slightly awkward, but pleasant young adult, more inclined to communicate to a wider audience."(3) The artists or the artist collectives and their locations in order of their entries in the book are: Don Murphy/TAK! (The Internet), Mobstr (London), STIK (London), Eine (Hastings), Ronzo (London),Eelus (Wigan), Pure Evil (London), D*Face (London), Mjar (London), Hin (London), Joe Keeler (London), Malarky (London), Slinkachu (London), Evol (Berlin), Pablo Delgado (London), Roa (Ghent), What Crew: 45 rpm/Richt (Bristol), Sweet Toof (London), Conor Harrington (Cork), Dscreet (London), Culprit (Edinburgh), Nick Walker (Bristol), Pinky (Bristol), Kid Acne (Sheffield), Ema/Florence Blanchard (NYC), Zeel (Hastings), Lucy McLauchlan (Birmingham), Mysterious Al (Melbourne), Morcky (Amsterdam),The London Police (Amsterdam), Phlegm (Sheffield), Dreph (Windsor), Finsta (Stockholm), André/Monsieur A (Paris), Blek le Rat (Paris), C215 (Paris), Invader (Paris), Poch (Rennes), Honet (Paris), Monsieur Qui (Paris), Dave the Chimp (Berlin), Josef Foos (Berlin), Flying Fortress (Munich), Swanski (Warsaw), Banksy (Bristol), Kello (NYC), Faile (NYC), Flower Guy (NYC), Jon Burgerman (NYC), Shantell Martin (NYC), ESPO/Stephen Powers (Philadelphia), Shepard Fairy (LA), Gomez Bueno (LA), Buff Monster (LA), Swoon (NYC), Boris Hoppek (Barcelona), Ripo (Barcelona), Spike (Luxembourg), Sumo (Luxembourg), Kenor (Barcelona), Eltono (Madrid), Nuria Mora (Madrid), Aryz Cardedu, Zosen (Barcelona), Pez (Bogatá), Gola (Rimini), Bo 130 (Milan), Klone (Tel Aviv), Pavel 183 (Moscow), SHOK-1 (London), Remi/Rough (London), Mark Bode (NYC).

Bought as a gift, it has some VERY cool examples of street art, inspiring for sure (legally obvs)!

I'd read it before from the library, so wanted a keeper copy

My son is enjoyed this book

Love this book!