I'm delighted to announce that Concrete Press has just released my new book, Grand Theft Samo. Written in collaboration with fellow artist Colleen Flaherty, Grand Theft Samo documents COLL.EO’s eponymous 2014 project comprising an artistic mod, a series of in-game performances, a set of videos (machinima), a collection of screengrabs and digital prints.
The second in a series of Grand Theft Auto IV interventions by COLL.EO that also includes Grand Theft Vito (2013), Following Bit (2013), and Arthur Rimbaud in Liberty City (2015), Grand Theft Samo puts the player in the streets of a fictional New York under the guise of a virtual Jean-Michel Basquiat. Fiction quickly turns into friction...
Additionally, COLL.EO has faithfully reproduced several SAMO's graffiti and embedded them on the walls of Liberty City, replacing the existing ones. The book includes a gallery of SAMO's graffiti, never seen before images from SAMO IS DEAD, a machinima created by COLL.EO, a critical essay by Morgan Rachel Levy, and an introduction by the artists.
Grand Theft Samo is available in a limited edition of 99. You can buy it here.
Here is a sneak preview:
