Make Something!! with Beautiful Losers
While still on the subjects of theaters from yesterday's show, Nike has just revamped a very special theater in the heart of Hollywood, the historic Ricardo Montalban Theater. The theater was built in 1926 by Cecil B. DeMille and designed by Myron Young to evoke the look of New York's Broadway theaters. Now Nike has transformed the interiors into an homage to its new sportswear line and is currently hosting a series of workshops for high school students, sponsored by the new documentary Beautiful Losers.
You might have caught the exhibition of the same name, which ran at the Orange County Museum of Art in 2005. The exhibition focused on a group of contemporary artists united by similar influences: skateboarding, surfing, punk, graffiti, hip-hop, and a general DIY aesthetic (we'll be covering this handmade movement on next month's show). The documentary is directed by Aaron Rose, former owner of the Alleged Gallery in New York, and features many artists whose work you've seen everywhere from theaters (Mike Mills, Harmony Korine) to t-shirts (Geoff McFetridge) to skateboards (Ed Templeton) to the streets (Shepard Fairey, Margaret Kilgallen) and everywhere in between.
Many of the artists from the film will be teaching Nike's Make Something!! workshops at the Montalban through September 8, so if you're in Hollywood, be sure to stop in and check out their creations, as well as a huge Geoff McFetridge mural that's visible up and down Vine Street. Location, hours and more information for the space can be found here. Also through September 8, Beautiful Losers will screen at the Landmark Nuart in West LA, and tickets can be purchased online. Here's the trailer for the film, which I guarantee will make you want to run out and Make Something!! yourself!
~Alissa Walker