November 29th- Beautiful Losers

Beautiful Losers trailer

Monday we spent most of class watching a movie called Beautiful Losers.  After watching the film, Jimmy tried to initiate a discussion in class about what we thought the movie was about.  I gave my answer, but I don't think it was what he was looking for.  Still, it was what I got from the movie and what I thought it was about.  Different people can watch the same thing and get something totally different from it.  If I watched it again I would probably get something totally different from it as well.  Anyways, my answer "It's about doing what you love because you love doing it."  A few other student gave answers but the discussion didn't seem to go anywhere.  Mind you, it's the last week before finals and I take it everyone is either stressed out, exhausted, or hit the wall.  As a result, Jimmy asked us to post in our blogs what we thought the movie was about so here it goes.

According to IMDB this movie is a documentary that, "follows the lives and careers of a collective group of Do-it-yourself artists and designers who inadvertently affected the art world."  True, that's technically what it's about but I'm still sticking with my original answer.  It is about doing what you love (artistically) because you love it.  All of the artists in the film made their art because they loved to do it.  They originally were not looking for profit, they just enjoyed what they did, showed it off to their friends, and had a great time doing it.  Most of the film talked about a gallery one of the artists in the film opened called Alleged Gallery.  This was a gallery in a crappy part of New York city where he and his friends showed their artwork and had parties.  This gave them a real sense of community and sparked a real do-it-yourself art phenomenon in not only New York, but around the country.  At one point, Aaron Rose, the founder of Alleged Gallery talks about worrying about not being able to pay rent for the gallery but shows still went on and the artists continued creating and showing their work because they loved to create.  Alleged was a great influence on what street art is today and pretty much introduced it to the world as being art even though it it not traditional art.

Looking back on it, for the most part I think the film was about the introduction & rise of do-it-yourself art & street art and doing it strictly because the artists loved their art form(s) and creating things from nothing.