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SXSW 2008: Beautiful Losers

By Paul Moore posted 7 months ago

In the early 90’s a small group of kids gravitated to Aaron Rose’s Alleged Gallery in New York City. It wasn’t so much a gallery as hang out spot that used to be a storefront, but to pass time this group–loosely knit through skateboarding and punk music–experimented creatively. They were the dispossessed losers of suburban America and as Mike Mills, whose one of them, says, “If you’re not dispossessed, why make art? Why try to save your life by making something?”

Having fun creating only to look back and realize that creating was your survival, then having to negotiate getting back to that fun spot so you can survive is the path of Beautiful Losers. Aaron Rose’s documentary is a painfully funny coming-of-age story about some of today’s most influential artists and it follows one rule: Don’t take us seriously. …Read more

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Festivals, Reviews, SXSW 2008

SXSW 2008: Beautiful Losers, Aaron Rose

By Paul Moore posted 7 months ago

What I didn’t expect from Beautiful Losers was how much fun it would be to watch a documentary of the most unpretentious, unmoody and successful artists of my generation. All the artists (Harmony Korine, Mike Mills, Stephen Powers, Thomas Campbell, Margaret Kilgallen, Shepard Fairey, Jo Jackson, Ed Templeton, Geoff McFetridge, Chris Johanson, Barry McGee, Aaron Rose) seem like they’re unconsciously competing to steal the show and win biggest laugh (Harmony wins, in my book). But the best part of Aaron Rose’s movie is how it transcends its genre and becomes a coming of age movie like I’ve not seen in a doc before.

Aaron Rose is the director, but his legendary Alleged Gallery was the incubator for these artists in the early 90’s. I talk to him about being at the center of this scene back then and what it meant for him and his buddies to “grow up.”