ARABIC GRAFFITI features Native & ZenTwo & more

I’ve been waiting for awhile for a graffiti/street art anthology that features the work of two of my favorite artists: Native & ZenTwo.  I’ve met up with them in Paris and have seen their work on city walls and on paper and on canvas in their working space in Belleville. I discovered ARABIC GRAFFITI (From Here to Fame Publishing, 2011) in MoMA’s  bookshop yesterday, skimmed it, immediately read the section featuring Native and ZenTwo and just finished reading (not skimming!) the entire book.  The astounding images generated by the fusion of Arabic calligraphy and Western graffiti first came to my attention via A1one’s tehranwalls.blogspot a number of years ago, and I’m disappointed that he, along with the other writers getting up in the streets of Tehran, are not included.  I did, though, gain invaluable insights into the visuals and the rich social and political implications of the writings on the walls of such places as Bahrain, Beirut and Gaza.

By Lebanese typographer Pascal Zoghbi and graffiti writer and publisher Stone aka Don Karl
Native & ZenTwo
Unknown artist, Beirut

All images courtesy From Here to Fame Publishing

SEEN Book Signing In Paris

The “Godfather of Graffiti” SEEN is one of the most well respected writers alive today. Here’s a chance to meet him in person in a Parisian book signing event. SEEN will be present at the Beaubourg National Modern Arts Museum in Paris for the book signing of the book From Style Writing to Art, a Street Art Anthology at 6pm tonight, Friday May 28th. This collection talks about 40 years of creation in this movement.

Le Tag in Paris (this show includes Taki 183)

My French is pretty terrible (just got back from France, realized I couldn’t say much more than ‘merci’ after 9 months not taking the language at school), but what this video is still pretty cool, and I Love Graffiti was able to help sort out with the details about Le Tag.

Le Tag is an exhibit in Paris of graffti by 150 writers. It is currated by French architect Alain-Dominique Gallizia.

Taki 183

Artists in the exhibit include (and I can’t believe this first one) Taki 183, Seen, Doze Green, Phase2, and L’Atlas.

I know that in some ways Taki 183 is just one guy that the New York Times picked up on as an early tagger, but the article featuring him inspired so many people to start tagging, and he was one of the first to really get their name throughout New York City. I didn’t even realize he was still writing his name. The last I’d seen of Taki 183 was in Bomb It the movie, and he didn’t seem too interested in graffiti. Even though it’s “just a tag” and I really like Seen and some of the other artists in this show, Taki 183’s stuff is my personal highlight of Le Tag.

Le Tag runs until April 26. More at the official website.