Urban Iran: A Rare Look at Iran’s Street Art Scene

Presaging the Twitter revolution by way of graffiti.

Last week’s Arabic Graffiti is already one of the most-liked books we’ve featured this year. And though an important non-Western voice in the global conversation on street art, it isn’t the only one. In 2008, indie powerhouse Mark Batty Publisher released the excellent Urban Iran — a gripping, visually stunning anthology by photographers Karan Rashid and Sina Araghi exploring the rich spectrum of street art across Iran’s cities and countryside. Alongside the lavish visual spreads are illuminating essays that examine the artwork in a sociopolitical context, bridging this faceted visual landscape with the cultural undercurrents that power it.

What makes the project particularly intriguing is that it came mere months before the 2009 Iranian uprisings, but the content and context of the street art themes featured in the book — censorship, rebellion, political disillusionment, a yearning for justice and democracy — presage what was to come.

Reshad embodies urban Iran, celebrating it and criticizing it simultaneously, and that seems to be the essence of the country today. Of course, there is nothing new about such a relationship, but that’s the ultimate point. Iranians are not just some aggregate, its purpose to serve as nothing more than media headlines and statistics for government reports. They are individuals, struggling and enjoying life the best they can, the same as the rest of us.”

Lavish and thoughtful, Urban Iran is the kind of gem that restores your faith in the art of books and the role of editors as curators of the meaningful, as amplifiers of voices that matter, as bastions of cultural aspiration.

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Arabic Graffiti: An Eastern Voice in the Global Street Art Dialogue

Diplomacy by way of street art, or what Gaza has to do with Banksy.

We love street art, but the majority of coverage on the subject has a severe geographic bias — every street art encyclopedia, every showcase of notable work, every documentary on graffiti culture tends to focus on Western lettering and imagery. Until now. Arabic Graffiti is an ambitious new anthology by Berlin street culture tastemaker Don Karl and Lebanese typographer Pascal Zoghbi exploring the use of Arabic script in urban context. The lush hardcover tome curates graffiti artists and typographers from the Middle East and around the world, who incorporate Arabic calligraphy styles in their artwork — a beautiful intersection of tradition and contemporary creativity.

Images courtesy of Slanted

Part cultural anthropology, part study in creative ingenuity, Arabic Graffiti is one of the most exciting design books to come by this year and a timely cross-cultural bridge of visual communication in the context of today’s global political climate.

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Stencil 101 for Kids & the Eternal Kid

Last week, we spotlighted 5 coloring books for the eternal kid, exploring grown-up subjects like indie music, sneaker culture and gansta rap through a medium indended for children. Today, we’re turning the tables and looking at something that does the opposite. Ed Roth’s Stencil 101: Make Your Mark with 25 Reusable Stencils and Step-by-Step Instructions takes the grown-up medium of graffiti stencils and brings it to kids — or, depending on your disposition, your inner kid — with a collection of wonderful portfolio-format stencils to customize anything from your wall to your pillowcase.

Bearing the charm of analog art in an overly digital world, Roth’s stencils blend playful pastime with the kind of ultra-personalized, custom-designed touch we’ve come to expect of just about everything.

To complement Stencil 101, take a peek at the how-to videos on Roth’s site, as well as his extensive gallery of application ideas.

Thanks, Sharon

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Inside Out Project: Street Artist JR’s $100K TED Prize

What the global importance of women has to do with favela murals and graffiti in Kibera.

Last fall, in a bold and unexpected move, TED granted the $100,000 TEDPrize to shadowy Parisian street artist JR. Known for his large-scale graffiti murals tackling social justice and human rights issues like freedom and identity, the semi-anonymous 27-year-old artist made his most revealing public appearance to date on the TED stage this week, showing some of his truly incredible work and sharing his vision for how the prize will empower his art.

The launch of JR’s Inside Out Project, an ambitious global collaborative art initiative, is a truly inspired experiment in civic engagement through art — a different iteration of something we looked at earlier this week.

If JR’s project tickled your soul like it did ours, here’s how to get involved.

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