Documentary Films: Exploring Graffiti, Street Art & Urban Art

Today I noticed, that there’s currently a new street art documentary called “No Art No Street” in production. Seems to be really interesting also because of the corresponding artists like Klub7, 44flavours, Danny Gretsher and Stör. No Art No Street, a 52-minute documentary is the fourth film in the documentary series Dasein Projekt. It is a street art documentary that focuses on walls as a painting, and the way they create themselves as such, and evolve between urban micro-interventions and the exchange between artists - artists who are regularly brought to collaboration through their common medium: these walls that unite them all. (Holz51) ...

At the end of last year, I announced the graffiti movie Girl Power, which is a documentary roadfilm and shows the typically male dominated graffiti world from the female point of view. Two days ago, the official trailer was published! The film crew travels across 15 European countries and crosses the Atlantic to graffiti’s birthplace New York, introducing the audience not only to female graffiti artists, but also famous writers, friends, interesting people and anyone else who truly has something to say. (Girl Power intro) ...

Before I will write something about that interesting graffiti documentary called “Getting Up”, I would like congratulate the team of F.C. Internazionale Milano for their great football match and for that nice result. Thumbs up, guys! Getting Up (Yeah, I know its from 2008, but it’s still in fashion!) is not that standard graffiti documentary which only describes the history of the worldwide graffiti movement, but it makes several famous writers and major players from the United States like Daze, Cope2, Ket, Futura and Noxer come to word - They more or less discuss their fight for fame. ...

Have you ever skateboarded an abandoned swimming pool? If not, your chance has come! It’s relative easy: All you have to do is to travel to one of these small villages in the United State like Fresno, find one of these empty houses with its big swimming pools, clean the pool and start to skateboard! And if you take some cans with you, you could paint the pool afterwards, like street artist D*Face did it some month ago… ...

I thought, she has a lot to do for her graffiti project “700 Wall”, but apparently she needs some distraction. MadC was born in 1980, is an active graffiti artist for almost 14 years and is one of the most popular female writers worldwide… MadC is known for massive and detailed concept walls. This year she is going to break her own record and paint her biggest and most elaborate concept wall ever. Just herself, without help. ...

Five month ago, I wrote an article about a beautiful video, which shows the cold snow atmosphere in Berlin. These days are over now, and the filmmakers crew started another series about abandoned places in Berlin: The first part of the series is about the famous “Eisfabrik”, an old and abandoned but great industrial building in the heart of Berlin, I visited with tape artist BUFFdiss some month ago…The second part is a beautiful documentary of the old “Bärenquell” brewery in the south-east of Berlin. ...

The producers of the “Beautiful Losers” DIY documentary recently published their graffiti documentary series, which is part of the street art, skateboard and punk documentary, “DIY America”… Roots and Drive - Graffiti Part One: In the first part the well-known graffiti artists Craig Stecyk, KR, Todd James, Sleezer, Epso and Earsnot talk about the history and spread of graffiti, as well as what motivates them to create graffiti. Legal vs. Illegal - Graffiti Part Two: The second part is about the dangerousness of Graffiti action. Graffiti artists Sace, Abhor, Amaze, Deadcat, Sleezer and Earsnot talk about legal versus illegal graffiti. ...

It’s really brilliant to see how simple the master of geometrical tape art, Aakash Nihalani, creates his great artworks! The most recent example is a short video called “Free Hand”, which shows in about 50 seconds, how Aakash sticked one of his actual tape creations to a wall in Brooklyn…it’s like magic… …No, you’re right - the video is reversed and one of the most famous tape artists around has punked you! Nice idea. ...

As you maybe know, I already watched Banksy’s street art documentary at the Berlinale film festival in Berlin. Now - in only ten days - that great movie will come into the US-American cinemas and therefor legendary street artist Banksy published another exclusive sneak peek of “Exit Through The Gift Shop”! “Exit Through the Gift Shop, the first film by renowned graffiti artist Banksy, became the hottest ticket at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival where it made its world debut. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. ...

Recently there was published another update for the “Art Monument 2010” (Turmkunst) event! Three of the four participating and famous graffiti artists Honet, Flying Förtress, Craig KR Costello and Sozyone are talking in that third promotion video about their concept and how they will try to combine their different styles… For all of you, who haven’t heard of the “Art Monument 2010”, here a small summary: ...