UNLOCK BOOK FAIR
HAMBURG 2023

The independent graffiti publishing scene is firmly evolving towards heavyweight, art-quality books often focused on trainwriting. Some of the most outstanding recent titles were present at the fair, among them “Viva Roma” by Berlin’s Drow, the retrospective books self-published by Mason TFP under the imprint Masmedia, and the gorgeous “Depicting Recent Memories” from Hamburg’s own It’s For Us Studio. 

A remarkable development in this field is “Moving Cathedrals”, a monograph about the recent series of abstract wholecars by Berlin’s Diamonds Crew. The book was presented at the Museum auditorium by publisher and Unlock partner Hitzerot from Berlin. Other ambitious volumes available at the fair were the ones by Berlin-based Racoon Books and the first “Blackbook” by German imprint Red Tower Publishing – not to forget the mammoth volume “Eine Stadt Wird Bunt”, produced by the team who hosted this year’s fair.

The most surprising takes on trainwriting came in the form of table games –not one, but two– that use the adventure of graffiti as their script. “All City” was first self-published by his author, and came to this Unlock in a brand-new, factory-produced version by Racoon Books. Podpolie, also based in Berlin, brought their whimsical game “Podpolie Illegal Crunch”, presented in a package that mimics a cereal box. In a related approach, Italian publisher Maurizio Jori launched “I Vandalotti”, the first graffiti-based sticker album.

The most anticipated highlight of the fair was probably the unveiling of “The Fame Game”, the new comic book by French artist Loiq. Loiq has been graffiti’s favourite illustrator since he self-published his 2017 comic book “Graffitips”, one of the most interesting and entertaining graffiti publications to date. After six years of work, he was able to finish his new comic book just in time for its presentation at the Museum auditorium. 

The result is a collection of illustrations and comic-book panels about graffiti culture and its contradictions, all full of Loiq’s trademark humour, and as insightful and fun as was expected from him. The stories and situations in the book put salt on every wound, and are sure to raise many uncomfortable chuckles.

Publisher Vers le Futur (France) brought an exclusive run of 50 copies for the zine’s pre-release at the fair, customized by Loiq with a hand-painted title. Loiq was also kind enough to print a new run of his classic “Graffitips” specially for the fair.

While large-format books are becoming a norm, traditional graffiti magazines are still published. Old and new projects from Europe and America like Spraytrains, Cityfuck, BAMN, Toy, Podpolie, ZGBkaos, Faces n Chases, Neongrau and SubCulture had a stall at the fair. The magazine and fanzine formats are today used as well as creative outlets for personal content and DIY approaches, and this Unlock Book Fair was, once more, a good occasion to tap into this field.

German artist and self-publisher Jens Besser was again present with his DIY train-related zines, and launched a new title at the auditorium. Dutch imprint Stickit did not fail to attend with their wide collection of monographic zines –including several new titles– while Belgian-Bulgarian publishers Nokkio Institute of Zines, also old friends of Unlock, brought their scarcely-distributed and fantastically nerdy graffiti publications.

A unique contribution to the fair were the zines by Grosse Récré, a small French publisher working with the most underground bends of graffiti culture, where the practice overlaps with urban exploration and freight hopping. The featured publications that inspired us the most, though, were the risographed zines by Keda*Press from Thessaloniki, a seamless mixture of cutting-edge DIY printing and anti-style graffiti.

It was particularly pleasing for Unlock to host the presentation of “Am I Nothing?”, a new zine produced specially for the fair by Snilsyason, the young and obscure Ukranian explorer who has been putting out some the most impressive work in the field. The zine was brought to Hamburg by Spanish imprint Brut Press.

The golden era of New York subway graffiti was covered at the fair from different perspectives. Polish publisher Brain Damage Gallery brought their recently-launched “Gods of Graffiti”, the new hardcover by graffiti pioneer Fuzz One collecting stories, photographs and illustrations about his experiences growing up around the subways in the 1970’s. The long-lost book “Subway Graffiti”, published by Swiss photographer Thomas Christ in 1984, was available in a lavishly extended reprint by Swiss publisher Thierry Furger titled “Instant Recognition”.

The classic “The Faith of Graffiti” (1974) –the first major book to be published about New York graffiti– became a center piece of the fair, with a talk by French curator Christian Omodeo and a very especial publication developed for Unlock by Dutch connoisseur Instagneto under the title “The Good And The Bad”. The project started when Instagneto found that the designer of “The Faith of Graffiti”, legendary Mervyn Kurlansky from Denmark, had been forced by the publishers to use a title and cover image different to the ones he originally intended. 

As a lover of books and fan of Kurlansky, Instagneto decided to do something about it. He travelled to Denmark to meet the designer, and presented him with an original copy of the book in a custom-made dust cover designed the way he had intended. “The Good And The Bad” tells this whole story and includes an interview with Mr. Kurlansky, who came up with the title and designed the cover. It has been produced by Dutch imprint Chemistry Publishing.

We were especially happy to present “Tag Spotlight”, Unlock’s own new series of image-based publications featuring rare documentation of name-writing in public space. The first four volumes in the series feature Boris ‘Delta’ Tellegen, OZ, François Chastanet and Mike Delmar aka @tape.delay, and have been co-published for Unlock by Hitzerot (Berlin) and Urbanario (Spain). The videos produced by Delmar and Chastanet to go with their volumes were premiered at the Museum auditorium on the Saturday afternoon. Read more about the “Tag Spotlight”series here.

As a main feature of the fair’s public programme we hosted an open talk around the idea of “graffiti heritage”. The event gathered the pioneering publishing and archival projects Arcanes (France), Munich Graffiti Library (Germany), Dutch Graffiti Library and Kladmuur (Netherlands), and aimed at kickstarting the discussion about this necessary topic. 

The fair’s program featured unique screenings, from a very rare peek into the obscure world of European trainhopping to a cinema-format presentation of ‘The Rise of Graffiti Writing’ –the ambitious video series developed by ilovegraffiti.de for Arte TV– hosted by Dutch graffiti pioneer Mick La Rock. The events closed with the premiere of “Stencil Stories”, a groundbreaking film exploring the unknown century-long history of street art, directed by famed German scholar Ulrich Blanché.

The fair was, again, a great experience. Throughout the weekend the Museum saw a continuous flow of graffiti fans meeting each other, checking books, attending talks, chatting with publishers and printing their own Unlock custom greeting cards at the stall of local printers BuchDruckKunst, who brought their antique letterpress equipment.

But all that was not enough! The Unlock team was back at the Museum for Hamburg History three weeks after the fair for The Tag Conference, our long-running academic meeting about name-writing in public space, this time produced in partnership with the Hamburg University and presented as part of the program of EINE STADT WIRD BUNT. Click here for the program and images of the conference.

We cannot be more grateful to the awesome EINE STADT WIRD BUNT team for their professionality and flair, in particular to Mirko Reisser, and of course to the Museum for Hamburg History for hosting the fair at their beautiful venue.

A big thank-you as well to all the publishers, speakers and visitors, you made the event. See you at our next feast of graffiti books and zines!