Wild Style (1982)

Wild Style is an American hip hop film directed and produced by Charlie Ahearn. Released theatrically in September 1982 by First Run Features and later re-released for home video by Rhino Home Video, it is regarded as the first hip hop motion picture.

Mystery Mind Maps - The Art of Pichai Rattanapornchai

The center of Bangkok is covered by thousands of mysterious graffiti. Our man will stay 5 days in the capital of Thailand and try to find the creator of those baffling pieces.

Pichai Rattanapornchai is a 58 year old homeless man who has lived his entire life in Bangkok. For an unknown number of years he has created intricate map-like drawings in public spaces of the city. 

Keith Haring Uncovered (Collingwood mural doco)

In 1984 American artist Keith Haring visited Australia & created a mural in Collingwood, Melbourne. This is the story of the mural which is now one of only 31 known murals by Haring that are still in existence worldwide.

The mural was defaced 12 months after the restoration was completed.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child (2010)

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child is a respectfully vivid, accurate, and entertaining homage to a painter who led a radical life and left an ambitious body of work behind after his premature death. The film opens with 1986 footage of Basquiat being interviewed in a hotel room by friends Becky Johnston and director Tamra Davis. For Basquiat fans, this film will prove essential viewing to flesh out an understanding of downtown New York's art scene in the 1980s, and to see Basquiat's pivotal role in this. While Downtown 81 is an awesome fictionalized portrait of Basquiat and his crew, and Julian Schnabel's feature Basquiat serves as tribute via Schnabel's dramatic artistic interpretation, Radiant Child offers the best possible documentary coverage of Basquiat's triumph and demise.

This feature-length film, constructed after Davis unearthed her 10-years-buried Basquiat footage to make a 20-minute short, then buried that another 10 years because of her strong wish to avoid exploitation, contains so much footage of Basquiat painting, partying, and being his charismatic self that one trusts it immediately. Additionally, Davis has interviewed every affiliated gallerist, among them Diego Cortez, Larry Gagosian, Bruno Bischofberger, Tony Shafrazi, Annina Nosei, and Jeffrey Deitch, not to mention all of Basquiat's surviving close friends, including Schnabel, Fab 5 Freddy, Glenn O'Brien, Maripol, and Thurston Moore. The film, organized chronologically to chart Basquiat's move out of Brooklyn to Manhattan, his beginnings as an itinerant street artist named Samo, his rise to gallery stardom, and his struggles at the end, marks time by showing paintings throughout that commemorate moments in Basquiat's life.

While the film obviously ends on a melancholy note as a warning about sudden fame and fortune, this film is ultimately more than a documentary about one man. It is a well-made testament, from the actual participants' perspectives, about what conspired in New York to allow Basquiat to shine. For viewers who recall those times, it may feel nostalgic; for viewers who glorify 1980s New York, this film will solidify New York's greatness; viewers who are artists may identify most, as one experiences a glimpse of a New York lifestyle that has come and gone.

"As I had discovered, Jean-Michel could be pretty awful. He also could be very kind and sweet, and The Radiant Child apparently showcases that side of Jean's character. In my presence he was often very paranoid about the people surrounding him, and he certainly was right to be that way as so many people were using him in one way or another. At least one of the people who was around his studio stole drawings, and I tend to think that Jean liked to be stolen from: he could then amaze the thief by confronting them and knowing exactly what they had taken." - John Seed, Driving Mr. Basquiat 

He died on Friday August 22 1988 at his live in studio at 57 Great Jones Street, amidst a heatwave in New York, alone and using. A girlfriend in the lounge downstairs, who waited for him to wake up alone. He was a junkie, a genius and too young but so wise.

"Basquiat was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn five days later. His father invited only a few of the artist's friends to the closed-casket funeral at Frank Campbell's; they were outnumbered by the phalanx of art dealers. The heat wave had broken, and it rained on the group gathered at the cemetery to bid Jean-Michel goodbye. The eulogy was delivered by Citibank art consultant Jeffrey Deitch, lending the moment an unintentionally ironic tone. Blanca Martinez, Basquiat's housekeeper, was struck by the alienated attitude of the mourners. "They were all standing separately, as if it were an obligation," she says. "They didn't seem to care. Some looked ashamed." People began to leave the cemetery before the body was buried. Ignoring the objections of the gravediggers, Martinez tearfully threw a handful of dirt onto the coffin as they lowered it into the grave." From Basquiat - A Quick Killing in Art By PHOEBE HOBAN

In the studio apartment was found finished and unfinished paintings, other artists' works (including several dozen Warhols and a piece by William Burroughs), a vintage collection of Mission furniture, a closet full of Armani and Comme des Garcons suits, a library of over a thousand videotapes, hundreds of audiocassettes, art books, a carton of the Charlie Parker biography Bird Lives!, several bicycles, a number of antique toys, an Everlast punching bag, six music synthesizers, some African instruments, an Erector set, and a pair of handcuffs.

Click on the image above for the entire film.

Banksy's Antics Roadshow

An hour-long special made by Banksy charting the history of behaving badly in public, from anarchists and activists to attention seeking eccentrics.
Contributors include Michael Fagan talking about breaking into the Queen's bedroom: 'I looked into her eyes, they were dark'; and Noel Godin, who pioneered attacking celebrities with custard pies: 'Instead of a bullet I give them a cake'.
Explaining his reasoning behind the show, Banksy said: 'Basically I just thought it was a good name for a TV programme and I've been working back from there'.
Narrated by Kathy Burke and produced by Jamie D'cruz, The Antics Roadshow examines the stories behind some of the most audacious stunts of recent times and what motivates the perpetrators, from mindless boredom to heartfelt political beliefs.
It includes a world exclusive first interview with the man responsible for putting the turf Mohican on Winston Churchill's head.

Exit Through The Gift Shop

Exit Through the Gift Shop, the first film by renowned graffiti artist Banksy, became the hottest ticket at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival where it made its world debut. Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post—hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner with spectacular results. The film contains exclusive footage of Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Invader and many of the worlds most infamous graffiti artists at work, on walls and in interview. As Banksy describes it, Its basically the story of how one man set out to film the un—filmable. And failed

Tibet ཊིབེཏ་:'Graffiti & the City' Lhasa 2008

Banksy and Mates in Sydney London Los Angeles

A show of street art opens this week at the new Urban Uprising Gallery in Sydney Australia.


a british culture show covers the illusive, infamous banksy


Banksy in LA Sept 2006