Beautiful Losers the art show was a traveling exhibition started in 2004. Beautiful Losers encapsulated finding beauty in the obscure and neglected that surrounds you rather than paying attention to that which you are told, therefore giving me what I thought was the perfect way to spend my day Superbowl Sunday back in 2005 (football is the lamest sport ever, anyway).

Beautful Losers encapsulates a movement; a subculture. What binds this movement is a glue of youth, resistance to established convention, and art influenced by one’s surroundings rather than other art. This movement which some chain to the “DIY” mantra represents the love child of skateboarding’s ability to transform the everyday into self-expression, surfing’s freedom, grafitti’s simultaneous bold yet debatable self-expression, and punk’s desire to be what the establishment is not. It’s a very strong DIY ethic that I’m sure rings true with any individual reading these words.

Beautiful Losers the film tells the story of 14 artists who both developed and embody this movement. One of them is the film’s director, Aaron Rose, who also founded the Alleged art gallery in NY that can be considered to the DIY art movement what CBGB’s was to punk.

Beautiful Losers film trailer from beautifullosersfilm on Vimeo.


Nike saw fit to involve itself with the film (a savvy way to boost street cred, no doubt) and last night they hosted a performance by the film’s soundtracker Money Mark at the Montalbán theater which they have temporarily taken over as a sort of store/venue. The Montalbán as a venue is like a pint-sized El Rey, perfectly holding the crowd that ended up attending the event. Money Mark gave a perhaps expectantly rough and free-flowing performance that might have underwhelmed a crowd not so perfectly fitting the demographics of his style.

Nike had shirts on sale to promote their Make Something!! workshops. These are “a series of creative workshops inspired by the DIY art subculture of the Beautiful Losers movement.” Right about now is when I should be pointing out the irony of Nike using a DIY subculture to further their brand and get the same swoosh Dunks on everybody’s feet, but that should be blatantly obvious.

Less obvious was the candy Nike used as decoration to display their Make Something shirts. The cases were “sealed” but you can be damn sure we were eating some of that candy by night’s end. Sorry Nike… consider it part of the DIY candy-eating subculture.

Beautiful Losers is playing now at the IFC Center in New York and opens August 29th at the Landmark Nuart in Los Angeles. There’s a handful of other screenings and you can even request your own by checking out their site. If you’ve ever ridden a skateboard, wore a RVCA shirt, or defended graffiti as a form of self expression, you owe it to yourself to check it out and hear the story of how it all developed.