The Beautiful Walls

[Yust] highlights 'the aesthetics of defacement': graffiti; poster-covered fences; tagged signage, buses, and railroad tracks. On the painted walls and pavements of Crenshaw Boulevard, Coachella, the Gare St. Lazare, and the Berlin Wall, Yust finds expressions of individuality, social and political decay, and outsider art ... Each of the book's panels is pulled outward from a detail image; opening them becomes an adventure that allows the viewer to experience Yust's painstaking process. He often takes more than 200 digital overlapping images to capture murals, a practice he calls 'finding luck.' Yust's images and cityscapes reward careful and repeated viewing; readers will find something new each time they unfold these panels. Publishers Weekly, starred review

Celebrates the artistry and audacity of the taggers and un-commissioned muralists who decorate and deface contemporary cities

Graffiti is a forceful way of inscribing presence or "being" in the world as well as a means of creating affective links to the potency of natural wonders, religious shrines, and ancient ruins as well as the contemporary cityscape. The photographic elevations presented in this volume represent a graffiti-punctuated pilgrim's progress built around the aesthetics of defacement. Graffiti- and mural-covered walls, buildings, automobiles, and railcars are the artful wonders, the vibrant shrines, and the dynamic ruins that structured Larry Yust's pilgrimage to some of the most famed metropolitan centers of the world. He has brought back panoramic souvenirs; vistas that let us be there in a way that is perhaps better than being there. This book celebrates the artistry and audacity of the taggers and uncommissioned muralists who decorate and deface contemporary cities.