ILLEGAL. Street Art Graffiti 1960–1995

The term Street Art became popular in the 2000s, describing illegal works in public space, often with a graffiti related aesthetic, choice of tools and sometimes even created by people with a graffiti writing background, e.g. BANKSY. But non-authorized paintings or writings in the streets have a way longer history. In ILLEGAL. Street Art Graffiti 1960-1995 art historian and Street Art expert Ulrich Blanché did focus on these pre-forms starting as early as the 50s.

In nine chapters Myriama Idir, Jacob Kimvall, Sven Niemann, Johannes Stahl, and Ulrich Blanché present interesting examples from the art and graffiti world before the hype did set in some twentyfive years ago. They spotlight topics like graffiti as record cover designs and marketing tool in the music industry, gender with namewriting originators BARBARA62 & EVA62 in focus, or works of the SAMO© duo Al Diaz and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Table of contents

• Instead of a foreword: Illegal, for a change – Ulrich Blanché, Simon Matzerath
• Introduction – Ulrich Blanché
• Milestones: Upvaluation of early Street Art to art 1952-74 – Ulrich Blanché
• Style: Images and words on handwriting, graffiti and style writing – Johannes Stahl
• The greater region. An epic of graffiti in the grande région – Myriama Idir
• Gender. Female Street Art and graffiti pioneers – gender, material and techniques – Ulrich Blanché
• Whole Covers and Label Pieces. The art of style writing as graphic design and marketing in the music industries. – Jacob Kimvall.
• Canned Politics? Academic perspectives on the phenomenon of political graffiti – Sven Niemann
• BARBARA62 & EVA62: More than just the first female urban artists? – Ulrich Blanché
• Some more SAMO©? – Ulrich Blanché
• When Haring was discovered in Germany. Klaus Wittmann – A documentation – Ulrich Blanché

Accompanying to the ILLEGAL exhibition, which runs until 23rd February 2025 in the Historisches Museum Saar, the catalogue does also include more than 60 pages of selected analysed works from the museum show. All texts are written in English and German and it’s really refreshing to find out about well and lesser known works of the precursors of modern street art.

The content which covers more than three and a half decades features works from FUTURA2000, DAZE, Marcus Krips, Jiří Georg Dokoupil, CRASH, ZEPHYR, LADY PINK, IZ THE WIZ, Harald Naegeli, STAY HIGH 149, CHAZ Bojórquez, SEEN, BLADE, BLEK LE RAT, BANDO, KING PIN, Richard Hambleton, Gérard Zlotykamien, Christy Rupp, Bird Lives!, CORNBREAD, Gigo Propaganda, HORFE, CAN2, RESO, MICKEY, Jenny Holzer, Keith Haring, Daniel Buren, Peter Ernst Eiffe, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, Jerzy Treliński, John Fekner, Aachener Wandmaler (Klaus Paier, Josef Stöhr), MODE2, OS GÊMEOS, and many more.

240 pages, 24 cm x 30 cm, softcover
Language: German / English
Editor: Ulrich Blanché
Release date: May 2024
ISBN: ‎ 978-3777443591
Publisher: ‎ Hirmer