Shoe’s Black Book: Graffiti as Working Object, 1985–1987

Niels Shoe Meulman's 'SHOE’S BLACK BOOK: Graffiti in the 1980’s' (Ruyzdael Publishing, December 2025) presents a reconstructed artifact from 1985–1987, blending journal, scrapbook, and field manual. The book, with an introductory essay by Carlo McCormick, traces Meulman's path through graffiti culture in Amsterdam and New York, featuring encounters with Dondi, Haring, Angel, and Bando. Pages were lost, stolen, and later resurfaced at Christie’s, leading to the unbinding of the original and treatment of each page as an individual work. The narrative moves by association rather than chronology, covering techniques, locations, near-misses, and the transmission of knowledge 'mouth-to-mouth and hand-to-hand.' Meulman pushes back against soft language, asserting vandalism and a 'Get Shit Done' mentality. The book does not present graffiti as an aesthetic category first but as behavior and connective culture. It shows how styles moved across cities and how a localized practice became shared. The identity shifts among vandal, decorator, and designer. The book is a constructed narrative, with memory filling gaps and stories sharpening over time. The theft marked a break, pushing Meulman into design. What emerges is a close-range view of how a scene forms through repetition, proximity, and exchange.