Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art and Street Culture

A graffiti-smeared manifesto, a skateboard’s battle cry, a gallery of souls who dared to color outside the lines. Place this book on your coffee table, let its pages breathe, and watch the spirit fill your living room.  You might just find a story of rebellion in its characters. 

First edition hardcover. Scarce in excellent condition. An inspiring publication of contemporary art and street culture featuring hundreds of color and black & white illustrations.

Gilt lettering on red cloth-covered boards. Illustrated dust jacket. Dust jacket has minor wear along some edges. Book and boards are pristine. Fine book in near fine jacket. Near fine overall.

"In the 1990s, a loose-knit group of American artists and creators, influenced by skateboarding, graffiti, street fashion and independent musie, began to create art that reflected the lifestyles they led. In the process, artists like Shepard Fairey, Mark Gonzales, Spike Jonze, Margaret Kilgallen, Mike Mills, Barry McGee, Phil Frost, Chris Johanson, Harmony Korine and Ed Templeton became part of an insular network, manifesting a society of alternative galleries, publications, and underground folk heroes completely independent of the mainstream art establishment.

Beautiful Losers is an unhinged, sincere, and straight-from-the-gut celebration of these artists and predecessors like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Raymond Pettibon and R. Crumb. It features hundreds of paintings, photographs, sculptures, collages, films, videos and installations- plus skateboards, album covers, stickers, clothing, handmade books, magazines, footwear and limited-edition toys- by more than fifty artists (also including Ryan McGinniss, KAWS, and Geoff McFetridge) whose inspiration comes from an inherent appreciation of street culture, in all its dangerous, poetic, authentic, rebellious and sometimes absurd glory." - from the back cover

Edited by Aaron Rose and Christian Strike, with essays by Alex Baker, Thom Collins, Jeffrey Deitch, Carlo McCormick, Arty Nelson, Aaron Rose, Christian Strike, James E. Walmesley and Jocko Weyland.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name, organized by CAC Cincinnati, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts San Francisco, and Orange County Museum of Art.

8.75 x 11.25 inches