Point Break: Surfers and Waves

"No survey of art world publications this year is complete without a look at street art and other visual vernacular. As this editor is a surfer too, it’s hard to resist Point Break: Raymond Pettibon, Surfers and Waves in this year’s list. ‘Surf it or paint it,’ is his motto. Pettibon’s surfers are shown confronting the immensity of the ocean alongside words by the artist, or taken from literature in his trademark interplay of word and image. Another offbeat addition is Duke Riley: Tides and Transgressions , a monograph on the Brooklyn-based graphic/performance/tattoo artist and provocateur Duke Riley . For Riley, who lives and works by Manhattan’s many waterfronts, waterways are the conduit to understanding our interwoven history, geography, and ecology; this is a layered study of how politics and culture impact our relationship with water. It’s a recurring theme that is reflected in his tattoo work, scrimshaw, printmaking and performances. This book also revisits his high jinx antics with bathyspheres and waterborne gladiatorial combat. Whimsy of the highest order, with an undercurrent of protest. And, speaking of protest, has there been a more vital time to protest than now? Taking Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ as a touchpoint, A Brief History of Protest Art by Aindrea Emelife traces eight decades of art as political statement, artists at the vanguard of overturning the often-repressive status quo. Human rights in their many forms find visual champions in artists speaking up to galvanise the public against injustice, inequality, and war, and more recently in support of LGBTQ+ rights, the Black Lives Matter movement and climate action. Art too speaks truth to power."