Description
Title: Dumbo
Subtitle: Acts Of Vandalism And Stories Of Love
Author(s): Barry McGee, Federico Sarica, Kyri Chenven
Hardcover
Published: 2007
Language: English
Pages: 136
Dimensions: 29.7 x 22.7 x 1.5 cm. / 11.7 x 8.9 x 0.6 inch.
Condition: Cover: 9/10 Inside: 10/10
“I dare anyone who has been to Italy, and especially Milan, in the past 10 years to claim that they have never seen the word ‘DUMBO’ written on the city walls. It’s impossible!” Here, the artist behind those five obsessively repeated letters–who has brought the question “art or vandalism” to a country better known for its Renaissance painting and streamlined design–reveals himself and the enigmatic art underground that has nurtured him over the last decade. Photographs depicting the clandestine routines of graffiti writing for Italy’s most popular street artist accompany almost 200 color pictures of Dumbo’s work all over Italy and Europe. Artist Barry McGee–who honored Dumbo in a piece done for the European opening of the American street art show Beautiful Losers–says in a preface here, “Dumbo represents everything right in this world by doing everything we are told is wrong.”
Word on the street is that the prolific graffiti artist Dumbo had to leave Milan for Brooklyn at the risk of arrest. The writer’s tag dots lower Manhattan, around Canal on West Broadway, but in Milan it seems like he hit every single building.
His recent book documents his life as a vandal, including his tags, art, actions and the like, featuring an intro penned by his fan, Barry McGee.
Why a book? Dumbo says “because I’m completely egocentric. Because there are so many things to learn from the experience of vandalism, so why not do a little propaganda for it? Because, unlike those (usually writers) who tout graffiti as the newest high art form, I want to tell the grimy truth, the most indefensible side, which will undoubtedly get me in the most trouble. But also to widen my public. To show this corrupt society that it will never represent me. To give context to all of the photos I’ve taken in these past years. But more than anything because I was coming to the end of a period that I wanted to record before officially beginning the next.”
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