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BRISTLE BOOK - 'Political Street
Expressions In Bristol And The South West'
This
is a full colour collection of subverts, stencils, graffiti, defaced
billboards and other graphical hi-jinks photographed around the
Bristol area in recent years, brought together in a pocket sized
tour-de-force of detournement.
Bristol has a strong history of very active public artists of this
kind - even spawning one cult figure in 'Banksy' - but the Bristle
book shows that this city must have about ten Banksy's to produce
such a volume of high quality work.
The book has sections featuring examples of each of the graphic
forms, and while it has a few written articles to set the scene,
it mostly lets the 500 different images which dominate the book
do the talking.
As far as funny and definitive critiques of consumerism, privatisation,
class struggle, and the so-called 'war on terror' in graphical form,
it doesn't get any better than this. There's even a series of photos
showing billboards actually being torn down - which is really what
should be done with them. All the content is copyleft
(eg can be re-used for non-profit use) - making it a repository
of razer-sharp graphics to fill a hundred zines - but it's a shame
some images are very small and harder to reproduce.
This book is published by Bristle,
the direct action and news magazine which has come out of Bristol
since 1999.
200 page, A6, full colour.
Ordering details:
£6 by post - cheques payable to 'Bristle', to Kebele, 14
Robertson Rd, Bristol, BS5 6JY, or direct from Bristle stalls, non-commercial
outlets, and from Kebele's stalls.
Or buy online at http://www.fugazi.net/dswat/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=922
For more information see Bristle website www.bristle.org.uk
email editors@bristle.org.uk
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