Considering it’s been around for seventeen years, and currently on their seventh issue, I’ve come to Unpleasant a bit late. Covering “international train writing culture” this publication has everything we’ve come to expect of high quality German magazines – it’s just a pity I’ve never picked it up before!
I recently got sent a copy of a magazine called Track & Field. Open mouthed in horror I began to read the introduction; what an earth is a defence of Thatcherism doing in a graff mag I thought to myself?! Well it turns out the short introductory essay on competition actually refers to the sporting rivalry between Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe in the ‘80s. The determination of these two athletes is used as a metaphor for the struggles of a graffiti writer. Sports fans are invited into the pages of a magazine that aims to “bring a voice to culture that shows no sign of taking a defeat just yet.” The ‘voice’ refers to the index of text, in the back pages, that follows the photography.
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I recently got hold of two nice magazines that have come out this year. The first of them is Schönz Züri, which comes from Switzerland and is dedicated to the scene in Zurich, while the second is a French mag called Boogie Woogie which focuses purely on freights. Although they both mainly concentrate on trains the two publications are actually very different from each other. So first I’ll describe each one to give an idea of what they’re about and then end with a brief comparison of the two.
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Without trying to sound like too much of a Germanophile Artistz is typical of the sort of graffiti publications from the country that are well produced, contain good quality photos of a nice size, have interesting content and generally just get the job done well. This particular German magazine focuses on transport in Berlin. It is thoughtfully laid out with photographic chapters that are split up by pages of interviews and text with English translations.
Continue readingFor this first post I’ll review one of my favourite magazines around at the moment. Concrete has been going for ten years and in 2015 has released its eleventh issue. The publication’s main focus is on trains with regular photo reports mainly from Poland but also elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe.
