Bomb It

First a long passage in New York, the first graffiti, the tags, the pieces (or however it is correctly named), the gangs, the people, the evolution. Paris, an artist, the groups in the streets, what they feel. Amsterdam, Barcelona, Hamburg, London, Berlin, São Paulo, Tokyo, Los Angeles. How to express yourself, how you evolved, what people think, why they do it, how does it fit around you. I advise you to see it with your eyes really open because there are some really funny moments that just pass by most of the people, like when some really common big advertisements show up in the streets. I found the documentary really interesting in general.

I was pretty surprised that I just happened to find this movie at Hastings & had never heard of it & then realized it is a really legit history of Graffiti (Much like the classics Style Wars & Wild Style from the 80's). I was thrilled to see some interviews with actual legends, the founding fathers of Graff such as Taki 183 & Cornbread! It was really cool to see tagging spread from NYC and go global moving up from bubble & block letters to Wild Style and then giving rise to pieces, murals and the birth of the phenomenon of street art. I also liked the balance in this docudrama, interviews with the police and anti-graffiti advocates right along with the most gutsy & outspoken writers. I really hope this documentary does a lot to reveal the absolute beauty of street art but also discourage straight up vandalism and gang related tagging that is just ugly.

I got this film on a whim and was surprised at how much I loved it. The whole idea of graffiti is so much deeper than I ever realized. Not only that, but it's a well shot film.

I am so impressed with where this movie goes literally and metaphorically. I loved the animation used at the beginning and how it's sprinkled throughout, it worked perfectly! Congratulations Jon should be really proud of it. Plus it says so much about the world and the state it's in, you really get this feeling that Graffiti is a desperate act to communicate! The movie works on so many levels. It is pretty awe inspiring in it's scope, discussing graffiti from around the world, questioning art, questioning what makes a space public. I came away with the feeling that all graffiti artists all over world do it for basically the same reason and because of this it feels like a universal language, that the whole world is suffering from the same disease and these artists are reaching out through places that are seen by everyone.

The movie is a gift , I hope a lot of people see it because they should!

Bomb It

To protect priceless paintings from thieves we should transfer them onto immovable objects.

Oh, wait, street artists, like the ones in this documentary, already do that.

Beginning with a man named Cornbread, who in 1967 spray-painted his moniker around Philadelphia, tagging became a craze in urban areas across America.

Considering themselves soldiers in an emotional, an artistic and a territorial war, faceless artists, like TAKI 183, Os Gêmeos, Terrible T-KID 170, Obey creator Shepard Fairey, and rapper KRS-One, descended upon their respected cities, bombing their neighbourhood with their nicknames creatively rendered with aerosol cans.

As the movement spread to other countries, its self-aggrandizing origins were repurposed for political protest and government sanctioned public art.

From subway walls, to Paris runways, to Hip Hop culture, Bomb It recounts the evolution of this controversial art form that begot a renaissance.

Incidentally, until now, I thought building graffiti was just the architect's autograph.

Green Light

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