If you have been reading our articles for a while now, you would probably recall our previous trip to Miami, where we visited the Wynwood Art District. We also took a trip to Paris last year and came back with lots of photos of the street art we saw around the city. Not to mention, we are fans of street artists Herakut and Invader, and supporters of street art events including HKWalls and Pow Wow. So, when we learned that Lonely Planet has produced a street art dedicated publication, featuring 140 hotspots in 42 cities in 224 pages, we were obviously very excited.
Compiled by Ed Bartlett, he has included a variety of dynamic pieces spotted in Malaysia, New York, Melbourne, Rome, Paris, Christchurch and more. With detailed maps of where to find the works and introduction to specific artists and festivals, this book “help(s) to cement the impact of the (street art) movement”, as told by street and gallery artist, Remi Rough.
“Its true audience is measured in the billions,” Ed said, “And given that the first record of homo sapiens painting on walls is thought to date back around 40,000 years, it’s actually more surprising that street art has taken so long to flourish.”
i) How were the included cities selected?
The city choices were made through a combination of several factors, starting with the overall scale of the street art scene in each, but also then looking beyond that at other features that might make it an exciting city to visit such as interesting architecture, culture, history and so on. And finally, trying to have some sort of overall geographical balance – it wouldn’t make sense to have just European cities or just North American cities featured, for example. The festivals section is also an important and unique angle for this book, as it gives people the chance to plan to travel to specifically experience these exciting events.
ii) How did you select the artists and the works to be included in this book?
As with the cities, the starting point was to take the most compelling names globally, and then, once the city choices had been made, refine the list to ensure an interesting overall mix. Some of these artists are so prolific that you could fill a book with just a dozen people, but we wanted to include the obvious recognisable names whilst hopefully introducing even the most knowledgeable street art fans to some artists they might not know.
Even though Rough did mention in his foreword that some might argue street at has gone ‘mainstream’, he emphasizes that street art has inevitably become an “intrinsic part of the cultural fabric of our cities.”
Lonely Planet: Street Art
Compiled and introduced by Ed Bartlett
Published March 2017 / 224pp, full colour, H200mm x W200mm, hardcover
RRP: USD $19.99
Image source: http://media.lonelyplanet.com
