Outsider Art The Movie - Beautiful Losers

Since films like Dogtown and Z-Boys and Riding Giants catapulted former outsider sports like skating and surfing into the cinematic limelight, everyone’s been getting in on subculture filmmaking. Step up Beautiful Losers an in-depth look at the early ’90s New York and LA-based art scene encompassing artists like Shephard Fairey (Obey Giant), Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen and filmmakers including Mike Mills (Thumbsucker).

The film interviews some of the movement’s leading lights and documents the seismic effect that their work has had on contemporary culture. Much like the ’80’s modern art industry’s fascination with outsider artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, the movement’s work is getting much attention. Stylistically it eschewed high art ideology in favor of the aesthetics of contemporary street culture and the design-led subcultures of graffiti and outsider music including punk and hip-hop, something which has become assimilated as a huge part of modern mainstream culture in graphic design, film and fashion.

Beautiful Losers