Book review – Bad Graffiti – We Make Money Not Art

Bad Graffiti, by Scott Hocking.

(available on amazon UK and USA.)

Black Dog Publishing writes: Bad Graffiti is a humorous celebration of the graffiti seen everyday in our cities and often overlooked.

Bad Graffiti looks at the plethora of graffiti that adorns our cities at a ubiquitous, popular cultural level. It is a record of the graffiti of the everyday, not of the named ‘artists’ who have contributed to the many books on graffiti ‘art’ over the past ten years or so.

Scott Hocking has been photographing graffiti since 2007, focusing on the humorous commentary decorating urban landscapes and particularly in areas of decay or abandonment. Hocking’s photographs, collected here for the first time, tell the story of the everyday and showcase the areas or markings so often seen but also overlooked by others.

Bad Graffiti is a funny, informative and at times irreverent look at the urban landscape today, making a great gift for those interested in the city and popular culture.

Dick Slap Yo Face Biatch – Man with Bass Guitar Penis

I don’t think i’ve ever recommended that you rest your eyes on something truly awful. Nor have ever reviewed a book that made me laugh so much.

Artist Scott Hocking has been spotting and photographing the most unsophisticated, the crudest, the clumsiest and the most idiotic graffiti in and around Detroit since 2007.

He’s not looking for the big names of street art but for what he calls ‘the little guy’, the one who’s drunk, angry, frustrated, bored or who just want to look like a bad boy (and miserably fails in the attempt.)

The result is funny but somehow it has more soul than the works you can admire at the MOBA (the Museum of Bad Art.) And that’s probably because Hocking knows that a graffiti can never really be taken out of its context. His photos show the comedy but also the tragedy of abandoned buildings, of a city hit by crisis, of its disenchanted inhabitants.