Walker Art Center and AIGA Minnesota Present Area Premiere of Beautiful Losers

“It evolves right before our eyes into something special, something memorable and something that catches the eye and the hearts of everyone who is lucky enough to be in the theater.” —Film School Rejects

On Friday, May 2, 7 and 9:30 pm, the Walker Art Center and AIGA Minnesota present the area premiere of

Beautiful Losers

, a film by Aaron Rose, co-directed by Joshua Leonard. Rose will introduce both screenings and participate in a post-screening Q&A with the audience following the 7 pm presentation. Beautiful Losers is a feature documentary celebrating a loose-knit group of American artists—Shepard Fairey, Ed Templeton, Margaret Kilgallen, Barry McGee, Mike Mills, Jo Jackson, Chris Johanson, Thomas Campbell, Harmony Korine, Stephen Powers, and Geoff McFetridge—who emerged from the 1990s underground youth subcultures of skateboarding, graffiti, punk rock, and hip-hop. The film tells the story of these independent-minded individuals, each with a passion for making art and a DIY sensibility, and the incredible impact they had on the worlds of art, design, fashion, music, film, and pop culture. 2008, U.S., 35mm, 91 minutes.

“The real magic lies not only in the fact that we were acknowledged, but that really, none of us were ever supposed to get there,” says Rose. “This is art created by a group of individuals who, in the eyes of society, were considered outcasts. When we started making our work, it was never even an option to think of having a career.”

Not since Andy Warhol’s “Exploding Plastic Inevitable,” which is credited with helping define the psychedelic sixties, has a collection of converging ideas across several mediums crystallized and ingrained itself into the mainstream. Beautiful Losers offers an inside look at the forces that helped shape youth culture’s looming influence on the 1990s. The film’s vignettes are informal, candid, personal, and revealing, giving us an insiders’ look into the past, a first hand look into the present, and an inspired view of the future.

Tickets to Beautiful Losers are $10 ($8 Walker members, AIGA Minnesota members, and students) and are available at walkerart.org/tickets or by calling 612.375.7600. The screening takes place in the Walker Cinema.