Briefcase Pick of the Week (POW) - Vigilante Vigilante: The Battle for Expression

Welcome lovely blog readers,

This is the first installment of Briefcase Blog's Pick of the Week aka the "POW!" (cue Adam West's Batman fighting sound fx). Let's review the trailer to the indie documentary Vigilante Vigilante: The Battle for Expression. 

For those of you who've been living under a cultural rock for the last, oh let's say 30 years, graffiti has been an ever prevalent art form in urban neighborhoods (and quite a few NY subway trains during the 70's and 80's). Yet as with all movements, there's evolution and graffiti eventually became a mainstay (supported by artists like Keith Haring, Banksy, Os Gemeos, Space Invader and Shepard Fairey). Street art has become the new cultural measuring stick in the art world. Simply put, what was once considered lewd and incongruous behavior by "hoodlums" and "trouble makers" in urban societies, those same artists have now become the taste makers and the reigning kings of an art landscape forever changed (Watch: Exit Through the Gift Shop, Read: Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art).

However for every movement, there's an Anti-Movement. That anti-movement has been documented by Max Good and Julien de Benedictis, the Writer/Directors of the documentary, and it captures one of the strangest, if not totally surprising reaction of buffing street art. Buffing is basically vandalizing street art by painting over it. The film speaks with the likes of New Orleans' "Grey Ghost" and LA's "The Grafitti Guerrilla" some of the many graffiti "crime fighters" as the film delves into a world perhaps little, if any of us at all, know much about.

As a fan of film making that turns societal norms on it's head, this film seems spot on. Who would've thought vandalism would become art and now that art has beget a new standard of vandalism. Is it so strange that previous lawbreakers (writers, artists, etc) are quite possibly now the victims of their own movement? You judge for yourself.

The film will be released this Friday August 12th to a limited release, so check your local listings for showings and make sure to tell a friend. Cheers!