Documentary Films: Exploring Graffiti, Street Art & Urban Art

One of my favorite urban art mags meets one of my favorite graffiti artists: Very Nearly Almost caught up with Austrian graffiti legend Nychos The Weird in London in late July 2012 with João Retorta and Luke Atkinson filming him doing his best… painting, painting, painting. Nychos passed through London last month and even with loads of rain, overzealous council workers buffing a piece on a private wall (within hours of it being finished) and several days dealing with a mysterious illness, he managed to paint some amazing murals. (VNA) ...

Eastcross Projects is going to release their street art documentary film Berlin spricht für sich selbst (Berlin speaks for itself) in near future. Originally announced for early August, the film documents various street artists like Mein lieber Prost, Think, Tona and Alias at work in Berlin. Including graffiti and tagging actions, group-pasting and sticker runs as well as run aways and police controls, the latest trailer (which is online for a few weeks now) promises deep and interesting insight into the loosely linked core group of creatives doing street art in Germany’s capital. Although I haven’t heard anything new about the film after the trailer, I’m nevertheless pretty sure there will be a release in near future - I’ll definitely keep you posted! ...

When it comes to graffiti in Berlin, the 1UP crew reigns supreme. This prolific group from Kreuzberg has not only made their mark across the city with their daring rooftop rollers and train bombings, but they’ve also taken their art global. In addition to releasing their own documentary, “1UP Graffiti – One United Power”, showcasing their work in Berlin and around the world, the crew has also established a strong online presence with their dedicated YouTube channel, “1UP Graffiti TV.” ...

What happens when a city declares war on graffiti? That’s one of the questions, the documentary Between the Lines, a film about a group of Toronto street artists who find new meaning in their work as they defend it against Mayor Rob Ford’s War on Graffiti, is going to answer! As mentioned by thegridto.com, Toronto’s Mayor Ford is making sure that everyone knows that he hates graffiti and street art since he took office in late 2010: He’s since gone so far as to slap on the coveralls himself to power-blast it from the walls of the city and herald a new mobile app that lets Torontonians report what they deem to be unsightly scribbles and murals themselves. ...

Blake Shaw and Bruno Levy aka Sweatshoppe developed video painting, a technology that allows them to create the illusion that they are painting videos onto walls with electronic paint rollers they built! Their latest video again showcases their live interactive video wheatpaste, this time in the streets of Berlin, Bristol, Belgrade, London and Paris. Over a two week period the duo pasted their videos in over 10 spots including the Berlin Wall, Les Invalides, Cordy House and even a two-story tall video painting in Bristol… ...

Whoot, what happened here? Did I miss something? That was the first coming to my mind when I stumbled upon Kilian Martin’s weird, awesome skateboard tricks just now! Hailing from Spain, and known internationally as professional skateboarder creating an all new way to extend freestyle into the realm of street skating, Kilian Martin’s unique movements set him in a class of his own. Recently he spent some time in an abandoned water park together filmmaker Brett Novak to create his next video Kilian Martin: Altered Route… ...

The Street Knowledge Agency, representers of author and content auteur King Adz, recently uploaded a half-hourly documentary about stencil art pioneer Blek Le Rat, whose 20 years old Madonna street artwork in Leipzig lately got preserved! As Crackajack.de mentioned, it’s probably the video from the outsold Blek Le Rat - Original Stencil Pioneer DVD by Gestalten. If anyone knows whether this is true, I would be pleased about a short comment… Street art has evolved and every major stencil artist today, most famously Banksy, have been influenced by Blek’s unique style. Bansky claims, “every time I think I’ve painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek Le Rat has done it as well, only twenty years earlier…” ...

Open Streets is really interesting-looking documentary about the so-called post graffiti/ urban art scene. Put together by French Shock Films collective, the film features with Belin, Cope2, ECB, Klub7, MadC, Monk.E, One Hate Seven and Nychos several worldwide well-known artists who left behind street art and graffiti and stepped further to what usually is called post graffiti or urban art… Open Streets is about this important development in the public art scene and tries to explore reasons, motivations and ideals of its creative protagonists. Recently, the first trailer was published, giving some first insights into the entire documentary, its structure and the artists. ...

As I already mentioned here, here and here French Da Mental Vaporz crew (DMV) is my most favorite European graffiti crew. Recently they came up with a beautiful behind the scenes video… The Crew Da Mental Vaporz was born in 1999 at the initiative of Bom.k and Iso in the Paris suburbs. Soon joined by Kan, they stand out by making huge frescoes in the sordid land of the southern suburbs, giving the most to topics outside the tradition of graffiti (hitherto confined to the sacrosanct lettering / comic book character bubbles). Thus, their productions, that can extend over tens of meters high and long, depict the monstrous madness, upholstery and imminent end of time. ...

On a hot-looking sunny day last week, RNG crew went big in Moscow! Although they cross handshaked each other (in Germany there’s a saying that cross shaking hands is going to bring ill luck) the RNG crew was in luck or well-prepared when they bombed that huge noise barrier in Moscow, some of them just wearing pants… This, in addition to the almost legendary CHO crew actions and the beautiful tram graffiti, is a conformation for my personal theory about graffiti in Russia, Russian crews and the somehow visible Russian mentality. Anyway, this RNG bombing was a huge effort - show them your love! ...