Textura: Valencia Street Art, by Luz A. Martín

Walking around the streets of historic Valencia, it's hard not to notice the interesting graffiti--where the traditional graphic tag composed of the artist's name is often rejected in favor of an entirely figurative, non-textual image.

Textura does an excellent job of offering a rich survey of this work in the city of Valencia. One criticism is that the works included in this book are overwhelmingly Carmen-centric, and neglect the output of traditional neighborhoods with strong artistic roots like Benimaclet and the Cabanyal.

Still, Textura does a great job of documenting recent Valencian street art. Published in New York (with text in both English and Spanish), the book’s look and feel is slick, and Martín’s striking photographs effectively capture these works in their urban context. The life-span of street art can be short. Sometimes it's painted over, destroyed, or vandalized. Projects like these are important because they document a vital and often overlooked subset of the artistic production of a city before it goes away. We’ll often stand in line for a hyped-up museum exhibit, ignoring all the way there street art made by artists much closer to us in time, mood, and place. Hopefully, this book is a step toward recognizing street art as a legitimate (and often unavoidably more relevant) branch of contemporary visual art.