Dumar Novy - What Do One Million Ja Tags Signify?
108 pages
Text(s) by Dumar Novy
18.4 x 13.5 cm
Language: English
Paperback with sleeves
Publisher: Possible Books
First edition
2015
Second edition
2020
Third edition
2024
Second edition
Some motherfucker has been tagging the side of your building for thirty years. Could that possibly be explained by common sense & unqualified observers, or is there something deeper happening on walls and objects throughout New York City?
A few of the essays written in this monograph, published separately in German and French, offer a succinct introduction to Dumar Novy’s recent thoughts on graffiti.
Novy tries to dispel the cynicism frightened beings traditionally have toward graffiti by showing that at the core of life, there is a yearning for the same experience: the impression of existence. Guided by the question Can the WoWO speak? Novy creates poetry that weaves philosophical interrogations with mathematical calculations, exploring such diverse fields as kinship, rebirth, dog shit & etymology.
The second edition of this book comes with a completely rewritten chapter (i am not gonna tell you which it is).
Third edition
A guy you don’t know writes a message you don’t understand in neighborhoods you don’t go in and yet you still think you know what it all means? What are you smoking and can you pass that this way? People go on podcasts claiming to know what the writings on walls and objects mean while city officials use the writings to win political points and slumlord land developers follow the writings in order to know which poor area to buy up to take advantage of the most vulnerable. Whatever they are smoking, pass that.
Much has changed since the first edition of this groundbreaking text, therefore, we have to break bread one last time before putting this world of ideas to rest. This third, and final green edition, brings in a new post-pandemic hyper speed internet migrant over the border crack is back chapter where a zone of exceptionalism is discovered & recovered.
In this book, King Kong Novy goes through time portals in subway tunnels dressed as Santa to translate simple graffiti into abstruse DIY folk music, keeping the driving question Can the WoWO Speak? foremost in mind.