Stuck Up Piece Of Crap
14 November 2012
Some time ago I contributed to a book. The book is now out, and it's only fair to the editor that I do my best to let people know about it. It's not often (it's never) that I quote from the website known as 'Cool Hunting', but it's very late and they actually put it quite well:
Founder of the record label Breakbeat Science and an early proponent of drum and bass, DB Burkeman wears many hats. Most recently, he took up the role of editor with his book Stickers: Stuck-Up Piece of Crap: From Punk Rock to Contemporary Art.
Stickers proudly displays Burkeman's collection - a mass he's accumulated over the past 30 years - as well as essays from Shepard Fairey, Bill McMullen, JK5, Stanley Donwood, HAZE, Moby, Lance Mountain and collections from several other prominent sticker collectors and makers such as Kaws, Espo and Invader.
The encyclopedic document covers a wide swathe of contemporary culture where stickers have been involved. With 4,000 examples, stickers span the Velvet Underground's Warhol banana sticker album cover to DIY postal stickers gracing NYC street lights.
Compiled according to genre, Stickers begins with punk rock and hardcore, goes on to skateboarding, early hip-hop, political messages and graffiti tags. Pages of actual stickers designed by Maya Hayuk, Ryan McGinness, Aiko, Todd James, Surface to Air, Barry McGee, KR and more allow you to get in on the action. DB says, "After three years of insane work and 6000 stickers all over our house, my family's feeling about the book finally coming out is "Thank fuck!"
Well, that was a report from'Cool Hunting'. Feel hip? So anyway, more about the book and the truly out-of-control project that its become here (the shop) and here (the blog).
