ARTISTS
A page from Ben Watts's Big Up
POP ART A page from Ben Watts`s Big Up It`s probably too late for a belated footnote to my list of the best photo books of 2003, but just try and
Vince Aletti / Village Voice
28 Jan, 2004
POP ART A page from Ben Watts`s Big Up
It`s probably too late for a belated footnote to my list of the best photo books of 2003, but just try and stop me. Big Up (Princeton Architectural Press), a hectic insider`s view of the past dozen years of urban youth culture by London-born, Australian-raised Ben Watts, is too wild and too idiosyncratic to go unmentioned. "I`m excited by photography," Watts writes, but what really excites him is his subjects, who include kickboxers, skate rats, club kids, break-dancers, wrestlers, and members of the hip-hop elite, from Nelly to Missy. The spontaneity and verve Watts packs into his pictures are perfectly mirrored in the book`s oversize scrapbook-style design (by the photographer and Deb Wood, in obvious debt to Peter Beard). Cut up, collaged, crayoned, and tagged with markers, the photos feel less like fixed, flattened documents than little time bombs about to explode. This sense of terrific, barely contained energy makes Big Up big fun, and the ideal time capsule for a style moment that just won`t quit. VINCE ALETTI
ILLUSTRATIONS
COPYRIGHT: Copyright Village Voice Jan 28-Feb 3, 2004. Provided by Proquest- CSA, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Only fair use as provided by the United States copyright law is permitted.
PROQUEST-CSA, LLC- MAKES NO WARRANTY REGARDING THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, OR TIMELINESS OF THE LICENSED MATERIALS OR ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.
It`s probably too late for a belated footnote to my list of the best photo books of 2003, but just try and stop me. Big Up (Princeton Architectural Press), a hectic insider`s view of the past dozen years of urban youth culture by London-born, Australian-raised Ben Watts, is too wild and too idiosyncratic to go unmentioned. "I`m excited by photography," Watts writes, but what really excites him is his subjects, who include kickboxers, skate rats, club kids, break-dancers, wrestlers, and members of the hip-hop elite, from Nelly to Missy. The spontaneity and verve Watts packs into his pictures are perfectly mirrored in the book`s oversize scrapbook-style design (by the photographer and Deb Wood, in obvious debt to Peter Beard). Cut up, collaged, crayoned, and tagged with markers, the photos feel less like fixed, flattened documents than little time bombs about to explode. This sense of terrific, barely contained energy makes Big Up big fun, and the ideal time capsule for a style moment that just won`t quit. VINCE ALETTI
ILLUSTRATIONS
COPYRIGHT: Copyright Village Voice Jan 28-Feb 3, 2004. Provided by Proquest- CSA, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Only fair use as provided by the United States copyright law is permitted.
PROQUEST-CSA, LLC- MAKES NO WARRANTY REGARDING THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, OR TIMELINESS OF THE LICENSED MATERIALS OR ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.
