Stencil Pirates is the most comprehensive book dedicated to the street art of the stencil. The book contains an exhaustive collection of close to 1000 photographs from around the globe. The photos show work by hundreds of different artists, exposing the width and breadth of stencil graffiti, from political to abstract and purely aesthetic, from tagging to public announcements. Stencil Pirates offers in-depth writings on the complex history of stencil graffiti, its political context, and how stencils fit into the larger pantheon of street expression. It discusses stenciling as a way for political movements to resist and mark territory, whether as part of gentrification struggles in New York and San Francisco or as part of the general uprising in Argentina over the past couple years. Stencil artists are the printmakers of the urban landscape, dropping art on sidewalks, walls, park benches, bus stops, store windows, etc. By far the most accessible form of printmaking, stencil artists simply need a piece of cardboard, a knife, a can of spray paint and something to express. Stenciling is a form of expression that boldly reclaims public space by inserting political or metaphysical messages into corporate landscapes.

Stencil Pirates

Arts & Photography

MacPhee, Josh

History & Criticism

Soft Skull

In each political movement, the question of how to disseminate information constantly arises. During the second half of the twentieth century, an often-unobserved method involved the vinyl record. In An Encyclopedia of Political Record Labels, Josh MacPhee highlights the span of political influence throughout vinyl's predominance by compiling record labels with a vast range of regional location, genre, and political affiliation. As MacPhee showcases, there are not distinct criteria signifying what a political record label consists of. Some labels appear to be sections of a political party that release vinyl copies of political music, while others are larger labels with a less political agenda but show solidarity by putting forth a record with a particular political focus. With the lines blurred, the Encyclopedia highlights thematic structures within record labels that span musical genre, cultures, and borders. From this, various relationships between politics and the vinyl record arise and call for potential areas of further study.

Encyclopedia of Political Record Labels

Music

Common Notions

Graphic Liberation: Image Making and Political Movements

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Books by MacPhee, Josh