The gang at GelaSkins are sending Toronto Mike to BOMB IT!, the explosive new International graffiti documentary. GelaSkins, who make and sell removable vinyl skins for protecting and customizing portable devices, is putting on the Toronto premiere of Bomb It on Friday, July 11th at 7:00pm at the Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor St. W.)
I ain't no hipster, so I had to Google this graffiti doc before deciding whether I wanted to see it. I found this review from Culture Now.
Jon Reiss’ global graffiti documentary hard hits a vital contemporary nerve. Where is the public space? Who owns it? And why do advertisers have the right to control our visual landscape with images that are often vulgar and disturbing? A consumer culture (that we all very readily accept) tells us that money buys these rights of control and access. Bomb It challenges this. The film suggests that there is nothing natural, neutral, or normal about this relationship. I’m not saying this is a Socialist film; it’s a beautifully shot and edited documentary that asks us to re-think the borders of public space and art. Interviews with graffiti artists and writers from Los Angeles, New York, Sao Paulo, Paris, Barcelona, London, Capetown, and Tokyo re-situate graffiti outside the prison gates and inside a riveting dialogue about how we as humans negotiate a place for ourselves in controlled environments. Chaz Bojorquez, Cornbread, Revs, Os Gemeos, KRS One, Blek Le Rat, and Shepard Fairey deconstruct commonplace notions that graffiti is thoughtless and ugly and always gang-related. The film gives graffiti back its history and philosophical and social virility as an outsider art movement. The international perspective reveals graffiti culture as something innately human, dating back to the earliest days in caves - a mixed drive to say: “Hello world, I’m here,” and to use art as a weapon to fight and express the alienation and ugliness of modern cities.
It sounds kinda cool. I'll post a review here after the T.Dot premiere.
