Broken Fingaz

This first monograph traces Broken Fingaz’s journey from the Haifa graffiti scene of the early 2000s to their monumental murals around the world, detailing some of their most ambitious and provocative projects to date and tracing the evolution of their visual style and unique, collaborative approach to artmaking.

Packed with over 200 images, previously unpublished documentation, and personal accounts from the group and their friends, this book is a multifaceted exploration that offers unprecedented insight into Broken Fingaz’s pioneering practice.

• Publisher: Lannoo
• Graphic design: Studio Claus Due
• Lyrics by: Broken Fingaz, Charlotte Jansen
• Foreword by: Humphrey Ocean
• Format: 30 x 23 x 3 cm
• 270 pages
• Cover Hard with embossed print
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Publication: 2021

About Broken Fingaz:

Broken Fingaz is a world-renowned psychedelic-pop collective from Haifa, Israel. Since their founding in 2001, members Unga, Tant, and Desohave have worked prolifically on the international art scene, with a practice that encompasses animation, installation, painting, murals, graffiti, and graphic design.

BFC's aesthetic draws on the rootless culture of their homeland, creating a visual identity for a generation of young Israelis. At the same time, over a decade of travel between Haifa, Asia, and Europe has led to an absorption of both Eastern and Western cultural influences, a natural fit for them as citizens of the troubled Middle East.

Using bold lines and acidic pop colors, Broken Fingaz Crew's work visually alludes to 1980s comic book illustrations and pulp horror. Exploring two of the most enduring themes in art history—sex and death—BFC's humorous, controversial, and often sexually explicit images contemplate notions of abjection through a confrontation with humanity's baseness and its repressed desires. Bodily dismemberment, mutilated limbs, and skeletons represent not only death, but also the need to understand the physical body and the invisible side of our corporeality.

Both in style and subject matter, their work is also inspired by Japanese Shunga prints from the Edo period. In their recent works, this style has been combined with motifs from Indian spirituality, questioning the duality between the sacred and the profane through symbolic imagery. Thus, their art draws on an Eastern tradition in which art has long been used to express the imperfect or primitive side of the human spirit. With their transgressive themes, Broken Fingaz's intention is to provoke the viewer; this takes on an even greater significance with their street work, where private desires invade public space.

Enigmatic and mysterious, the psychedelic imagery of Broken Fingaz's works provokes a visceral reaction that challenges conventional identity and notions of the material self. In this way, their work represents a return to truly subversive public art, aimed at disrupting the foundations of the established social order.

Demonstrating the importance of their contribution to contemporary culture, their public murals can be seen on city streets in China, Japan, Cambodia, Brazil, Israel, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Mexico, and elsewhere. Rooted in contemporary pop culture, the collective regularly produces artwork for musicians such as Blink 182, Pearl Jam, Primus, Gaslamp Killer, U2, Alchemist, Gonjasufi, and others.