Some week ago I promised an update of some sort, lost or fresh, Olaf special or whatever. All this depends off curse on whether we get Mad Mikes computer going… Fucked up harddrives can be an itch.. In the meanwhile I would like to promote 2009 most important art release, well, after Scandinavia 2008 that is…… Im sure that this book will end up at some torrent tracker but as the new IPRED law is in use,  some of you real graff heads may hecitate, and go buy it with your hard owned stolen money. I hope. Well worth it!!

ilovegraffiti:

Just as Banksy‘s book “Wall and piece” gave people an easy access to street art, the title ACTION PAINTING gives outsiders a profound insight into the phenomenon of painting on trains. An insight into a closed world with its adventures, its special techniques, its ethics and all the passion behind these humourus, radical, sometimes political or straight typographical pieces of art.

All works presented in this book are no longer existent. Gone for good, washed off the side of the train, sometimes only hours after their creation. What remains is a little photo. A last glimpse of what to create took much skill, courage, determination and the risk of paying horrendous fines or even going to jail for it. The fate of that little photo is often to end up in a shoe box hidden for the constant fear of criminal prosecution.

The authors of ACTION PAINTING – BRINGING ART TO THE TRAINS (ISBN: 978-3-939566-25-0) have brought many of these photos back to the light and have created the most comprehensive collection of art painted on Europe‘s transit systems until today. The task had much of a treasure hunt, as it was a long chain of conspiratorial contacts which in the end lead to unmarked packages that would arrive, containing the sought after photos. On 216 coloured pages one finds the highlights of what has been riding on the rails between Helsinki and Madrid in the past quarter century.

25 years ago the release of the iconic book “Subway Art” by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant sparked the flame of painting trains on this side of the Atlantic. While train graffiti died in New York it continues to flourish on Europe‘s trains and soon freed itself not only stylistically from its origins. It has created the most diverse forms of expressions, but what unites all those that sneak down the tunnels and over the rails between Bucharest and London is the the strong belief, that art has to roll.

This book is one of the must-have graffiti publications of 2009. Packed with extraordinary train graffiti photos from the last two decades in Europe and lots of interesting quotes.

Dont miss it!

Get it at Stylefile here!