Documentary Films: Exploring Graffiti, Street Art & Urban Art

Don’t know if you already heard about it, but the TED Prize and famous photographer and urban artist JR (the 2011 TED Prize winner) developed a nice new project called Inside Out in March 2011. The idea behind this project is that you submit a portrait photo of yourself, which will be printed and send back to you so that you are able to paste the poster somewhere in the city… ...

Two days ago, the first episode of the urban exploring video series Crack The Surface was published, giving some interesting and also spectacular insights into the small but exponentially growing, worldwide urban exploring scene and its culture. Those who risk it all to access and infiltrate closed, abandoned or forgotten spaces explain the what, whys, and how to’s of exploring urban space… Garnished with some extraordinary film sequences, showing people entering underground drains and stations, climbing on roofs (Check out 12:37 - I think it’s taken from the top of The Shard tower’s construction area in London, the upcoming tallest building in the European Union!) or wading through sewage, the interviews reveal not just but also difficulties and other things urban explorers should think about. ...

Graffiti artists upgrade their tools: Berlin-based graffiti and intervention artist DTagno just came up with a crazy train graffiti installation, what he calls Morphogenetic Field Device… The device consists of a solid metal frame and several spray-cans, which can be triggered all together at the same time via a single metal bar. Although the recently published video documentary is a bit long-winded, it demonstrates the workings of this unique graffiti tool quite well. ...

Moscow-based art collective Faceheads just meet up with Russian probably the best street artist ever, who sometimes is named the new Banksy - His name: ATO! The special thing about ATO is that he creates beautiful street artworks without having any noticeable concept - A fact, a lot of other street artists should also keep in mind as not to get too conceptual with their street art. Worldwide Street Artists: Banksy, ATO, Brainwash - Not sure what to believe? Then you definitely should read our Street Artist Interviews! ...

Several weeks ago I already posted about the nice new mural artworks by urban art superstar Roa in Mexico. Back then, I didn’t know that his works were well documented on film by Filmaciones de la Ciudad, what’s really good, because we have now the chance to watch him painting… The Belgian graffiti artist travels the world since a few months, for what reason you can find his works in Madrid, London, Paris, Berlin and other metropolises! I for one like Roa’s animal graffiti stuff, and it’s always impressing to see how some skilled artists are possible to paint those massive walls… ...

This graffiti documentary looks just great! Obsession Of Colours documents graffiti artists in Poland’s Tri-City area, which is an urban area consisting of three Polish cities: Gdańsk (where the Streetfiles photo exhibition took place in 2009), Gdynia and Sopot. There isn’t that much info about this new Polish film project right now but I can tell you, the footage is mind-breaking! Including fantastic angles, unusual points of view and great lights, I’m pretty sure Obsession Of Colours will become the next highlight of graffiti documentary and a must to watch for all graffiti enthusiasts and documentarists… ...

65 Graffiti artists from 13 countries got together in 2010 for the 1st Biennial International Graffiti Fine Art exhibition at the MuBE Museum in São Paulo, Brazil. The whole art event was organized by exhibition curator Binho Ribeiro and New York-based graffiti documentarist Jared Levy… In an art world where semantics matter, graffiti artists from around the world wonder what exactly is Graffiti Fine Art. After all, once graffiti leaves the street… is it even graffiti at all? ...

The last time I wrote about British urban artist Word To Mother was after my visit of his exhibition opening at Stolen Space Gallery in London. Now I just stumbled upon this dope video by Andrew Telling showing Word To Mother painting for the Fame Festival in Italy back in 2010. Born and raised in a small English seaside town, never far from a stoney beach, crashing waves and salty sea veterans. It’s this environment that has had such impact and influence on Word to Mothers work and can be seen throughout his drawings and paintings… (Stolen Space Gallery) ...

Spray-can Production | You all know how it looks when paint sprays out of a nozzle and what talented people can create with that high pressure technique. But have you ever wondered how a spray-can gets produced? Spray-can producer Montana Cans came up with the idea (the concept is by Ruedi One!) to showcase some details of their entire spray-can production line, which gives us the possibility to get to know how the paint comes into the cans… ...

Mural Art | Caleb Neelon’s Wedding Wall… when I wrote this title I noticed that actually it’s a bit strange for a city to have a district called Wedding. I mean this post is not about fairytale weddings or golden weddings but about the first part of the “Wedding Walls” urban art project in Berlin, which commissioned - as I already mentioned - six internationally well-known urban artists to repaint huge walls in the north of Berlin! ...