We’ve seen Very Nearly Almost (VNA) magazine move a long way from the black and white issues of 2006. The photo street artzine is now considerably smarter with its colour pages. Issue six brings with it a new style: the introduction of a spine and loss of the staples, together makes it look like a ‘proper’ magazine.  What hasn’t been lost fortunately, is the huge range of street art documented within its pages.

Issue 6 covers the stencil art of the great Cans Festival. Unfortunately, only the big names are shown such as Eelus, Banksy, Vexta etc. Whilst this will cover what the majority of people will want to see when looking for pictures of Cans Festival,  I think that Cans Festival is well documented and you don’t have to go far on Flickr to find information on the big artists. That said, the quality of the photos show the artwork in their true form beautifully and if you are unable to get to Leake Street (the Cans Festival Location) youself  or want a reminder of the event, this is a great way to view the artwork.

A highlight of the magazine is the interview with street artist Ace. One thing I personally really enjoy discovering about artists is how they were introduced to street art and I feel that the interview covers this very well. Ace comes across as a very bubbly guy and seems to be open minded where UK street art is headed. When reading the interview however, it felt as if someone had started to tell a joke but forgot the punchline - the ending felt abrupt and I would have loved the interview to have carried on for a couple more pages. With the introduction of the interview to VNA it seems its moving closer to a magazine rather than a photozine (just displaying pictures) which I believe to be a fantastic step in the right direction.

If your looking at getting a street art zine to have something interesting to sit on your coffee table then this is definately a must buy. The pictures in here are great and cover a huge range of artists and styles. If your looking at getting a street art zine to get inspiration from then again, this is definately a must buy. If your looking at getting a street art zine to have something to read whilst your on holiday then you may think again about getting this one. Even though the interview with Ace, is well… ace, its fairly short and will leave you wanting more. The addition of the interview in Issue 6 is brilliant and I hope that Issue 7 will feature more text content. At only £3 you’ll find it hard to complain about anything in this mag and I would recommend getting it to anyone, unless your only buying it to read on holiday :P. As a photozine it is superb and any artists that finds his/her work in here should be very proud.

Links:
Very Nearly Almost Website

Tags: Magazine, VNA

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.