Shoe’s Black Book — Graffiti in the 1980s

Shoe’s Black Book by Niels Shoe Meulman offers a window into an artist’s formative years. Before the galleries, the recognition, his development as a typographer and the founding of the Calligraffiti art movement, there was this: a worn and relentless black book filled with tags, pieces and outlines.

Between 1985 and 1987, Niels Shoe Meulman (Amsterdam, 1967) documented his growth from wide-eyed newcomer to an artist with a fully developed style of his own.

More than just a sketchbook, this black book is a testament to the time when Shoe tagged along with New York artists like Rammellzee, Dondi White and Keith Haring. It’s a record of learning: part diary, part playground, part testing ground. Here is a facsimile of a book that was stolen and mysteriously returned. But it’s also adorned: Shoe’s additional notes and sharp recollections bring the era into focus.

Each page captures graffiti knowledge, passed on by word of mouth and from hand to hand. Shoe’s Black Book is both document and artefact: immediate, unpolished, authentic. While other books record a culture, this one helped build it.

Note: the book is published in two formats: paperback and hardcover. The hardcover is a special limited edition, available exclusively through the publisher. Both variations, special and regular, are hand-signed with a Shoe tag, which forms an integral part of the typographic cover design.

The production of the book and its presentation were made possible with the support of the Mondriaan Fund.