Search results for ""Author Roger Gastman""

The Crips are the largest and most notorious black gang. Now with an estimated 250 sets nationwide, the Crips started in 1969 with just 10 members in South Central Los Angeles. Gregory "Batman" Davis was one of these founding members. Since its inception, the Crips have been the subject of countless newspaper articles, news specials, and documentaries. Some have interviewed Batman, many have used one of the few images he released to the press-including newspapers like The New York Times, websites like StreetGangs.com, and documentaries such as O.G.'s Gangsta King and Stacy Peralta's Crips and Bloods-but none have told his story from start to finish. No ordinary tale from the streets, Batman's story includes a host of unlikely characters-Field Marshal Cinque and Patty Hearst of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), cult leader Jim Jones, serial killers the Skid Row Stabber and Charles Manson, and ex-football player Jim Brown, to name a few. This is the true story of an Original Gangster.

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Shepard Fairey s first comprehensive monograph brought back into print, which chronicles his early art school days, his viral Andre the Giant has a Posse sticker campaign in the 1990s, the creation of his enormously successful OBEY apparel brand, and his longtime role as an activist-street artist.

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If you were a graffiti writer in 1980s New York City, you wanted Martha Cooper to document your work—and she probably did. Cooper has spent decades immortalizing art that is often overlooked, and usually illegal. Her first book, 1984’s Subway Art (a collaboration with Henry Chalfant), is affectionately referred to by graffiti artists as the “bible”. To create Spray Nation, Cooper and editor Roger Gastman pored through hundreds of thousands of 35mm Kodachrome slides, painstakingly selecting and digitizing them. The photos range from obscure tags to portraits, action shots, walls, and painted subway cars. They are accompanied by heartfelt essays celebrating Cooper’s drive, spirit, and singular vision. The images capture a gritty New York era that is gone forever. And although the original pieces (as well as many of their creators) have been lost, these powerful photos feel as immediate as a subway train thundering down the tracks.

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BLADE has already told his life story through graffiti. Now, more than forty years into his career and armed with an incredible memory, BLADE sits down with Chris Pape to reflect on growing up in the Bronx in the turbulent 1970s, and recounts the highs and lows of his storied career, holding nothing back. BLADE is considered "The King of Graffiti" because, by 1980, after painting 5,000 wildly creative trains, he stopped counting. This book parallels the New York graffiti movement almost from its inception, moving through its glory years in the mid-1970s, when BLADE earned his title, and ending in the global art scene, where he remains a major presence. BLADE helped New York graffiti become internationally famous by making it look fun, and, for reasons of quantity, quality, and, perhaps above all, for sheer spirit, BLADE may very well be the most popular graffiti artist with his peers.

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