This month on Vandalog, I’ve organized a few giveaways.
The first of those giveaways starts today with two copies of Jon Naar and Norman Mailer’s seminal graffiti book The Faith of Graffiti. When it was first published in 1974, The Faith of Graffiti was the first book to take a serious look at graffiti. In 1974, Jon Naar’s photos and Norman Mailer’s essay gave the graffiti movement some mainstream legitimacy, as Mailer was one of the first to call writers artists. Looking back now, the book acts as an important historical document, preserving the very first generations of New York graffiti. Mailer’s understanding of graffiti was unparalleled at the time, and his writing is still an important starting point when looking at graffiti in the context of art history and art criticism, while Naar’s photos, taken at a time when few other photographers were paying much attention to graffiti, are invaluable evidence of how widespread and powerful graffiti culture was in the 1970’s
For years, it hasn’t been easy to get a copy of The Faith of Graffiti, as it was out of print, but last month it was reprinted in an expanded edition. This book is an absolute must-have for fans of graffiti and street art; my 1st edition is one of my prized possessions.
So how can you get a free copy of The Faith of Graffiti? Easy. HarperCollins has given me two copies of the paperback edition to give away. To enter the contest, you can either comment on this post (make sure to include your real email address, otherwise you can’t win because I won’t be able to contact you), or go on twitter and tweet a link to this post along with the hashtag “#vandalog”. But you have to enter before 6pm (GMT) on Wednesday, January 13th. After that, I’ll randomly pick two winners. Good luck.
Of course, not everybody can win, so if you’d like to buy a copy of the book, just go to Amazon.com
Photos by Jon Naar