Compiled by staff and contributors of Swindle magazine, Street World is a collection of over 1,000 photos and around a half dozen essays. The book awkwardly attempts to define street culture, with moments of insight clouded by pandering to readers nostalgic for a mythological ‘80s New York City. Second-rate genre descriptions are redeemed by their comic value, “heavy metal music has been a major influence in the lives of teenagers.” The book fails when reinforcing middle-class America’s lust for low-class style and glamorizing the depraved, such as a young man wearing a fur coat and holding a pitbull on the subway. The pitbull is carrying a brick in its mouth. In other images, gang members flash pistols. The book excels when documenting subjects free of mimicry; custom bikes and cars, paste-ups and stencils, street art installations, murals, posters, and signage all show and respect their influences without the stench of exploitation. Street World’s most successful section is called “Inspiration.” In one photo, large Buddhist statues sit in a dirty alley. In another, we see a finely decorated home made in an abandoned subway tunnel in Copenhagen. There is a collage of taco trucks, many of which are wrapped in fluorescent light. The book is fond of images of foreign streets, each wildly covered with bright advertisements, posters, and murals. A brief but wonderful section of the magazine is dedicated to the hand-painted stop signs on the back of taxis in Mumbai. An impressive collection of urban decay ranges from junkyards to dilapidated buildings. Somehow the visual excess, the painfully ironic, and the woefully damaging blend together to make sense. A photo of Paris Hilton is displayed below a tray of grilled hot dogs and the reader thinks, “Of course.” Street World’s images achieve what its words cannot.
– Chris Force
STREET WORLD: URBAN ART AND CULTURE FROM FIVE CONTINENTS
Robert Gastman, Caleb Neelon and Anthony Smyriski
Hardcover 384 pages $35, Abrams
Swindle Magazine: www.swindlemagazine.com
Abrams: www.hnabooks.com/category/home/87