GRAFFITI AVANTGARDE – MOSES & TAPS

Nine years after their legendary book “International Topsprayer”, which is out of print long-since and traded for hundreds of euros by now, MOSES & TAPS release a brick twice as thick: Graffiti Avantgarde is a heavyweight! With 544 pages, more than 2000 photos in ten chapters as well as a variety of exciting and subtle texts, it gives a deep insight into MOSES & TAPS broad work as graffiti artist since 2011. The book shows how they managed the balancing act between bombing trains and being accepted artists and explains why these two worlds are not mutually exclusive.

The monograph begins with an interview with MOSES & TAPS by the criminologist Ike, in which she explores the question of what actually constitutes the graffiti avant-garde, who it is, what goals it has and what it drives. The “Topsprayer” chapter, in which MOSES & TAPS lead us through various stops on trains from Russia to the USA, is followed by the SPLASH chapter, in which you learn on which places you can leave colorful traces with spray cans without using a fatcap and letters.

Afterwards the scepter is handed over to ALIAS, whose professed 1001 trains in 999 days on 176 pages are rounded off by his stories and the action photos of Edward Nightingale “Scratchiti” MOSES shows why he paints glass panes in order to clean them, how he brings them from the train yards to the museum and back again and we learn why he hates Mickey Mouse. In the chapter “Corporate Identity” Robert Kaltenhäuser then deciphers how all chapters can be connected via MOSES & TAPS CI codes, why yellow-blue works better than Banksy and what´s behind it.

In “Image of Graffiti” TAPS makes clear, why Graffiti must be illegal and reveals how one can create an image of it on canvases nevertheless. While the chapter “Creative destruction“ deals with the complexity of MOSES & TAPS’ works, which are expressed in collage pieces, the part “Konzept-Vandalismus” is dedicated to their unique conceptual works on trains – and sometimes also the walls inside. To round the book off, MOSES & TAPS explain and illustrate in two separate chapters their very personal approach of developing their styles.