Documentary Films: Exploring Graffiti, Street Art & Urban Art

I have some interesting news about the grandiose “Beautiful Losers” movie: The film, which had its global premier at SxSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas in March 2008, is available in its full length on Youtube since a few days ago… “Beautiful Losers” is a documentary film which gives some very special, entertaining and interesting insights into the live of some of the protagonists of the DIY (Do It Yourself) street art movement. It shows in an impressive way the creative life between skateboarding, punk, hip hop and graffiti. ...

Sam O’Hare took about 35,000 photos and invested 5 days for post-processing for that great New York tilt-shift video. I was really astonished when I saw it some minutes ago! The video, which is called “The Sandpit - A day in the life of New York City, in miniature”, shows great impressions of the street life in New York in a technically perfect way, although it’s actually a fake tilt-shift… ...

Infamous street artist Banksy recently did an interview with the British newspaper Sunday Times, which - As you can read in the corresponding article - was made by e-mail. Banksy talks certainly about his “Exit Through The Gift Shop” street art documentary, why he “don’t makes as much money as people think”, why the “amount of security cameras” gets on his nerves and even whether he trained art formally at school… ...

There’s a graffiti war going on! I think you all had heard about one of the hottest graffiti vs. street art battles. For weeks, new facts, info and backgrounds about Robbo vs. Banksy spooked through the urban art blogs around the world. While visiting London, Banksy repainted a historical graffiti wall and drew criticism on himself. Afterwards, the Robbo crew modified all in all four of Banksy’s street artworks. The story of a graffiti vs. street art war was born. ...

I already posted some impressions of the Faile and Bast collaboration exhibition by Ian Cox at Lazarides Gallery. Today I have some moving pictures from the show for you! Babelgum visited the making of “Deluxx Fluxx Arcade 2010” and filmed Faile and Bast while their preparations. The huge count of posters pasted on the walls combined with black light and luminous colors looks phenomenal and also the special designed game machines are really phantastic! Please, give me one of those arcade games… ...

Today was my Banksy day - I watched his street art documentary “Exit Through The Gift Shop” at the Berlinale Film Festival! Right at the start a warning: Those of you who don’t want to know any info about the content of Banksy’s film should stop reading this article, the rest of you will now read my short “Exit Through The Gift Shop” review… First of all I have to say that the film is really great - I love it. It isn’t one of these street art documentaries you already know, it’s something bigger! “Exit Through The Gift Shop” tells the story of Thierry Guetta aka Mr. Brainwash and how his “Life is beautiful” art show overtrumped Banksy’s legendary “Barely legal” urban art exhibition and shows how stupid the international art market works. ...

For about 2 hours, I aligned myself with almost 150 other people at the Kino International yesterday, to get tickets for Banksy’s “Exit Through The Gift Shop” street art movie - And now I’m a proud owner of two tickets for the film! “Exit Through The Gift Shop” is a documentation film, which contains exclusive footage of Banksy, and many of the world’s most infamous graffiti artists, including Shepard Fairey, Mr. Brainwash or Sweet Toof, at work. ...

I already wrote one or two times about nice parkour and freerunning videos, but this time I will show you the great trailer of a grandiose film about these two kinds of movement in urban space. My Playground is the title of that documentary film, by Kaspar Astrup Schröder. It’s not one of these regular action-videos, but it has a deeper theoretically background… The film explores the way Parkour and Freerunning is changing the perception of urban space and how the space is changing the traceurs and freerunners. Mainly set in Copenhagen the film follows the making of the first dedicated parkour park in the world. Designed by the danish team, Team JiYo. The film also travels around the world to Japan, United States, United Kingdom, and China to explore the common understanding of exploring the urban space seen from a traceur and freerunners perspective. ...

After I watched this beautiful time lapse video, I agree to the people who said, that the Olympic Winter Games have chosen a nice city this year! Although Vancouver is the third largest metropolitan area in Canada and the different views of the video are really nice, it’s not comparable with the time-lapse city portraits of other cities, like Tokyo & Yokohama, London or Hongkong. Nevertheless I somehow like that time lapse. Perhaps it is because of the small streets… ...

Beyond doubt, Futura 2000 ranks among my favorite graffiti-artists. His old style made him famous - his new style is clear and modern. Born in 1955, Futura started to paint illegally on New York’s subway in the early seventies. He earned a lot of fame and exhibited together with other popular artists like Keith Haring in the eighties. ...