Cool Hunting

Open Air
Premiering this Friday, 23 June 2006, with a party and art exhibit, Open Air is Alyssa Natches and Lou Auguste's documentary about contemporary street art that's over three years in the making. Featuring some of the more innovative street artists out there like Faile, Michael De Feo, Dan Witz, Skewville, and ESPO, the film addresses controversies over the use of public space and surveys...

Next: A Primer on Urban Painting
Finally! I have been waiting since January when Next: A Primer on Urban Painting premiered in Rotterdam to see it on the big screen. Pablo Aravena started making this documentary about five years ago. For the next four years he went around the world and interviewed some great graffiti artists. And in the time since they were filmed, many of them, like artists Os...

Arthouse Films
Brought to our attention this past week, Palm Pictures released a new series, Art House, Inc., a collection hard-hitting and fascinating documentaries that chronicle art, fashion, and music. (With some crossover, naturally.) Arthouse focuses more on the development of the American art scene, with its acclaimed retrospective documentary "Who Gets to Call it Art?" about the creative renaissance centered in NYC in the 1960s...

Beautiful Crime
"Graffiti is not vandalism, but a beautiful crime," is one of the philosophical pillars that this guerilla gallery operates on. Now that we seem to have stopped arguing whether graffiti is art, we can start to enjoy some of the fine stuff collected by the folks at Beautiful Crime. The current exhibition by San Francisco artist Pure Evil chronicles how a tale of giant...

Be Here to Love Me
Like many obsessions, Margaret Brown's fascination with Townes Van Zandt began with one song. After a friend played her the folk singer's "Waiting Round to Die," she bought all the records she could get her hands on. The resulting documentary, Be Here to Love Me is the kind of work that can only come from an artist's devotion, much in the way that Townes...

Monsters That Scare Me
Last Friday, Rocket World held the opening reception for their gallery exhibit, Monsters That Scare Me, which featured new work by reknowned graffiti artist Richard Mirando aka SEEN. Much of the work featured were silk screened paintings reminiscent of his graffiti past as well as works utilizing the image of skulls inconjunction with bright vibrant colors. All worth stopping by Rocket World to check...