The exhibition offers a selection of more than one hundred and fifty books from the Artium Library and Documentation Centre on graffiti, a movement which was born in the New York suburbs in the 60s and which is one of the characteristic features of the hip hop culture. The development of techniques using templates, signs, stickers and the design of new nozzles for the sprays has converted this into an artistic discipline which now plays an extremely important role under the name of Street Art.

The exhibition invites you to discover the history of graffiti from its early beginnings to the present day in books such as The birth of graffiti; Le livre du graffiti or Street Art, which are accompanied by catalogues with thousands of photographs of cities from around the world: Graffiti: urban art from the five continents; Paris street art; Graffiti Paris; Brooklyn street art; Los Angeles graffiti; BCN NYC street art revolution; London street art; Barcelona 1000 graffitis.

The upsurge of this discipline at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century lead to it becoming more and more common place in galleries and museums all around the world. Thus, exhibition catalogues are on show such as Homenaje a Guernica; Urbanitas; We come at night; Street art sweet art:dalla cultura hip hop alla generazione Pop Up.

Artists of the calibre of Keith Haring, Brassai, Banksy, Suso33, Blu, San, Beautiful Losers, SEX, el niño de las pinturas, Os Gemeos, Shepard Fairy, Montana Writer Team, Giant and many more playing a special role with individual monographs of their own work.

There is also a place for all Street Art techniques in Street art:graffiti, stencils, sitckers, logos; Stencil nation; Fadings; Stick ‘em up; Stencil 101; Peel:the art of the stickers; Street art:stencils!; México:stencil:propa; Street art :stickers, with a special place reserved for the book Sticker graphics:do you lovestickers?, which contains a collection of stickers designed by different artists.

The closely knitted relationship between graffiti and other disciplines such as music, fashion, design or skateboarding is portrayed in Latex for fun; Art, skateboarding & life; Rap attack 3:African rap to global hip hop; 21 diseñadores de Cibeles & 21 artistas urbanos; Una guía de la moda urbana.

To delve deeper into this subject, there are interesting studies into the theory and critique of graffiti, by experts such as Jesús de Diego (Graffiti.La palabra y la imagen) or Fernando Figueroa-Saavedra (Graphitfragen:una mirada reflexiva sobre el graffiti).

Also specilist magazines can be consulted such as Serie B, Hip Hop Nation, La Charku, Graffiti All Stars, Pua13, Wanted and the comic La Troupé edited by the Catalan spray company Montana Colors.

The selection is complemented with abundant audiovisual material made up of more than one hundred photographs of graffiti in Vitoria, videos, films and rap music. Amongst other documentaries being shown are Style Wars, Wild Style, Piece by piece, Next: a primer on urban painting or Bomb it.

In closing, this exhibition is documented with a dossier and website providing news, a bibliography and details of internet resources.

Through graffiti: off the wall into books. ARTIUM Documentation Centre and Library Funds
Seminario Room, close to the Library, from April 23 to September 20, 2009