What this urban art from looks like in America's anti-city.

As dazzling as the art it celebrates, this volume is packed with 1,000 full-color illustrations and features in-depth interviews with more than 125 train artists and "writers" to provide unprecedented perspective into graffiti.

A catalog of an exhibition that surveys the history of international graffiti and street art.

Artist Alexis Ross along with Tattooist Bert Krak created a special installation as part of the massive Beyond The Streets exhibition. Alexis Ross designed and art directed the installation, described on-site as follows: "Magic Touch is the name of this artistic expression celebrating the creative follies of Canarsie homeowners from the late 20th century - a sort of shade-tree tattoo parlor that might exist on your cousin Carmine's back porch from a time when Cadillac was king and you picked your tattoo design off the wall." Krak's real world business, Smith Street Tattoo Parlour supplied the magnetism, world-wide notoriety and talented tattooists. They made a splash on-site as they mugged with fans and tattooed real life flesh and blood right from "flash" on the wall. Known as a standard bearer of neo-classical tattoo, Bert Krak draws enthusiasts of the style from near and far, and Magic Touch provides a cross section of the scene. This book documents hundreds of tattoos inscribed on site, 50 pages of tattoo "flash" art and atmospheric shots from the installation itself. Includes 24 page mini booklet.

America's largest city generates garbage in torrents—11,000 tons from households each day on average. But New Yorkers don't give it much attention. They leave their trash on the curb or drop it in a litter basket, and promptly forget about it. And why not? On a schedule so regular you could almost set your watch by it, someone always comes to take it away. But who, exactly, is that someone? And why is he—or she—so unknown? In Picking Up, the anthropologist Robin Nagle introduces us to the men and women of New York City's Department of Sanitation and makes clear why this small army of uniformed workers is the most important labor force on the streets. Seeking to understand every aspect of the Department's mission, Nagle accompanied crews on their routes, questioned supervisors and commissioners, and listened to story after story about blizzards, hazardous wastes, and the insults of everyday New Yorkers. But the more time she spent with the DSNY, the more Nagle realized that observing wasn't quite enough—so she joined the force herself. Driving the hulking trucks, she obtained an insider's perspective on the complex kinships, arcane rules, and obscure lingo unique to the realm of sanitation workers. Nagle chronicles New York City's four-hundred-year struggle with trash, and traces the city's waste-management efforts from a time when filth overwhelmed the streets to the far more rigorous practices of today, when the Big Apple is as clean as it's ever been. Throughout, Nagle reveals the many unexpected ways in which sanitation workers stand between our seemingly well-ordered lives and the sea of refuse that would otherwise overwhelm us. In the process, she changes the way we understand cities—and ourselves within them.

On the sides of buildings, on bridges, billboards, mailboxes, and street signs, and especially in the subway and train tunnels, graffiti covers much of New York City. This book offers a rare look into this world of contemporary graffiti culture.