Street artist/fine artist Nicholas Ganz, author of Graffiti World, offers urban art enthusiasts a second round of exceptional research and art compilation, this time concentrating on the pioneering contributions of women to contemporary graffiti writing and artwork. Having always been a part of the street art front lines, female graffitisans are typically overshadowed by the men in the ranks due to sheer numbers rather than any lack of innovation or talent. Ganz, along with author Nancy Macdonald and co-conspirator Swoon have produced an exhaustive narrative that tells the intricate story of graffiti writing women. Included are the artist's personal stories and their insights into the male-dominated urban art world.
The Ganz collection, like his earlier work, promotes the efforts of praiseworthy, marginalized artists. In the case of Graffiti World that marginalization occurred as a result of the art form itself. In Graffiti Women, it's not the "second-best", urban artist that is lauded but the women who are graffiti writers that receive the exhaustive and well-deserved coverage. Although the author's intent is not to be divisive, it is unfortunate that our cultural approach to acknowledging one another centers around labeling people as either "blank" or "female blank". In Three Artists: (Three Women), Anne Middleton wrote:
To identify an artist this way, as a woman, has never been a merely parenthetical remark. The qualification has customarily been offered as a limit to, rather than a guarantee of, suitability for the artist's role - with mostly irritating results for the artists themselves. (2)
Nicholas Ganz does a unparalleled job of describing the contribution of almost two hundred women who work in the urban art genre. His book will continue as a permanent part of my small but well-loved collection and I will continue to wonder whether the world is best served by keeping the commendation of exemplary women separate from that of men.