Above The Law Volume I is the definitive book about graffiti on passenger trains. It is an in-depth look at underground movement that began in New York City and that has since spread all across the globe, detailing the artists who are most prominent in the shrouded subculture and the art that few are privileged enough to witness.
It is the third book by artist Phil America that is focused on the topic. Through his eyes and performative nature, Phil America immersed himself in the culture and followed a group of the world’s most well-known graffiti artists for the past ten years, meticulously and beautifully documenting their lives and their work. With this, we are able to see behind the mask of artists with a fierce devotion to their work, so much so that they are willing to risk their lives and their freedom to create it. Each photograph tells a story, and yet no image can ever convey just how much effort, danger, risk, planning, and sacrifice went into each moment.
The book takes us all around the world, across the borders and into the subway tunnels, following the most respected artists living today in this genre. The photos show images far outside the view the institution of fine art and seek to bring to light these unique stories. While graffiti started in Philadelphia and New York on subway trains, it has now largely moved to being done on walls and other surfaces in large metropolitan cities all over the world. Above The Law focuses on what many consider the most pure form of graffiti that has gone back to its roots. This book includes ten years of previously unpublished photos capturing the experiences of these artists as well as their work, a selection that is indicative of their greater body of work that most will never see. As their art is almost immediately destroyed, these photos act as a memory, a ghost of a fleeting moment of liberty.
It is a work that highlights the limitless freedom of each individual. Each photo stands on its own as not worth 1000 words but 1000 stories.
A portion of all sales from “Above the Law Volume I” goes to the Campaign for Youth Justice, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to ending the practice of trying, sentencing, and incarcerating children under age 18 in the adult justice system.
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