The greatest cultural accomplishments in history have never been the result of the brainstorms of marketing men, corporate focus groups, or any homogenized methods; they have always happened organically. More often than not, these manifestations have been the result of a few like-minded people coming together to create something new and original for no other purpose than a common love of doing it. In the 1990s, a loose-knit group of American artists and creators, many just out of their teens, began their careers in just such a way. Influenced by the popular underground youth subcultures of the day, such as skateboarding, graffiti, street fashion, and independent music, artists like Shepard Fairey, Mark Gonzales, Spike Jonze, Margaret Kilgallen, Mike Mills, Barry McGee, Phil Frost, Chris Johanson, Harmony Korine, and Ed Templeton began to create art that reflected the lifestyles they led. Many had no formal training and almost no conception of the inner workings of the art world. They learned their crafts through practice, trial and error, and good old-fashioned innovation. Not since the Beat Generation have we seen a group of creative individuals with such a unified aesthetic sense and varied cultural facets. The world of art has been greatly affected by their accomplishments as have the worlds of fashion, music, literature, film, and, ironically, athletics. Over the years, the group has matured, and many have become more establishment-oriented; but no matter, their independent spirit has remained steadfast. Beautiful Losers is a retrospective celebration of this spirit, with hundreds of artworks by over two dozen artists, from precursors like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Larry Clark, to more recent adherents Ryan McGinniss, KAWS, and Geoff McFetridge. Work in all conceivable mediums is included, plus reproductions of reams of ephemera. The accompanying essays are contributed by a half-dozen writers who have championed these beautiful losers from the start.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Most of the work in this exhibition catalog is not beautiful by traditional standards. Nor can its makers, artists whose work is now displayed in museums and top galleries around the world, really be considered losers. Yet the loosely affiliated group of skateboarding and punk music aficionados represented in this book seems to have a considerable amount of cachet invested in their outsider status, their ability to see the beauty in being a "loser." Many of the painters, photographers and cartoonists in this book appear to be taking a cue from the most famous insider/outsider of them all, Andy Warhol: witness Harmony Korine’s photo-collage of a disaffected Macauley Culkin, Terry Richardson’s photo of a young man sitting on a toilet or a scarf design by Mike Mills titled "Fight Against the Rising Tide of Conformity." The artists consume popular culture and then spit it back out in a highly personalized form to express their alienation from the usual boogeymen (suburbia, capitalism, middle-class middlebrow culture). Bucking the traditional art school route, these self-taught artists prefer a more laid-back, "D.I.Y." ("do it yourself") attitude. This approach involves doodling, spreading graffiti and taking snapshots of their friends naked. The book’s accompanying essays narrate the development of these street culture artists with an absurdly exacting level of detail, the kind usually reserved for the lives of geniuses who’ve been dead for at least 10, maybe even 20 years. And while the book is excellently produced and the works in it are a lot of fun, it’s hard not to wonder if these artists enjoy posing as outsiders a little too much, especially given their newfound success. 200 color & 200 b/w illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Harmony Korine was born in Bolinas, California in 1974. At 19, he wrote the screenplay for Kids, directed by Larry Clark, and later wrote and directed Gummo, which won awards at the Venice and Rotterdam film festivals, and Julian Donkey-Boy, which won an award for best art direction at the Gijon International Film Festival in Spain. He is the author of the novel A Crack Up at the Race Riots.
The self-taught San Francisco-based artist Chris Johanson was born in 1968. His work has appeared at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and in the 2002 Whitney Biennial in New York, and he has had solo shows at SITE Santa Fe, the UCLA Hammer Museum, the Jack Hanley Gallery in San Francisco and Deitch Projects in New York. His work has been covered in the New York and Los Angeles Times, Vice, Black Book, Tokion, Paper, Interview and the New Yorker.
Born in San Francisco in 1966, Barry McGee took the tag name "Twist" when he started drawing in the streets in the mid-80s. Some of the more conventional locations where his work has been exhibited include the 2001 Venice Biennale; the Drawing Center, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Growing up, Mike Mills was sure he was going to be a pro skater. Then he got into Cooper Union, found an internship at the groundbreaking design firm, M&Co., and began the design work that would lead to the famous X-Girl logo; skateboard graphics for Supreme, Stereo and Subliminal; scarves and fabrics for Marc Jacobs; fashion related graphics for Esprit and The Gap; Sonic Youth album covers; and a slew of music video directing credits including the Beastie Boys, Beck and Air. Several independent shorts later, he has set up shop with Roman and Sophia Coppola at The Directoris Bureau. In 2005 his first feature, an adaptation of Walter Kirnsis novel Thumbsucker,was released.
"Ed Templeton was born in Orange County, California, in 1972. His parents divorced when he was eight. At age 13 he was introduced to skateboarding, which he credits with changing the course of his life forever. With a month left of high school, he dropped out to start skateboarding professionally in 1990. Soon after, his first trip to Europe significantly changed his worldview, clarifying a love/hate relationship with his hometown that continues to be a source for his work. Templeton started Toy Machine Bloodsucking Skateboard Company in 1993. His first solo exhibition took place in 1994 at Aaron Rose's Alleged Gallery in New York. In 1995 he took up photography in earnest. His first book of photographs, Teenage Smokers, 1999, from Alleged Press, won the $50,000 first prize in the 2000 ""Search for Art"" in Milan. In 2002 his second book of photographs, The Golden Age of Neglect, was published by Drago in conjunction with an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. More recently, his work was featured in the bestselling Beautiful Losers, published by Iconoclast. Templeton currently lives and works in Huntington Beach, California, and continues to exhibit, run Toy Machine and skate professionally."
Aaron Rose is an international curator and independent writer. His books include the best-seller, Beautiful Losers and Out & About by Ari Marcopoulos.
The self-taught San Francisco-based artist Chris Johanson was born in 1968. His work has appeared at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and in the 2002 Whitney Biennial in New York, and he has had solo shows at SITE Santa Fe, the UCLA Hammer Museum, the Jack Hanley Gallery in San Francisco and Deitch Projects in New York. His work has been covered in the New York and Los Angeles Times, Vice, Black Book, Tokion, Paper, Interview and the New Yorker.
Born in San Francisco in 1966, Barry McGee took the tag name "Twist" when he started drawing in the streets in the mid-80s. Some of the more conventional locations where his work has been exhibited include the 2001 Venice Biennale; the Drawing Center, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Growing up, Mike Mills was sure he was going to be a pro skater. Then he got into Cooper Union, found an internship at the groundbreaking design firm, M&Co., and began the design work that would lead to the famous X-Girl logo; skateboard graphics for Supreme, Stereo and Subliminal; scarves and fabrics for Marc Jacobs; fashion related graphics for Esprit and The Gap; Sonic Youth album covers; and a slew of music video directing credits including the Beastie Boys, Beck and Air. Several independent shorts later, he has set up shop with Roman and Sophia Coppola at The Directoris Bureau. In 2005 his first feature, an adaptation of Walter Kirnsis novel Thumbsucker,was released.
"Ed Templeton was born in Orange County, California, in 1972. His parents divorced when he was eight. At age 13 he was introduced to skateboarding, which he credits with changing the course of his life forever. With a month left of high school, he dropped out to start skateboarding professionally in 1990. Soon after, his first trip to Europe significantly changed his worldview, clarifying a love/hate relationship with his hometown that continues to be a source for his work. Templeton started Toy Machine Bloodsucking Skateboard Company in 1993. His first solo exhibition took place in 1994 at Aaron Rose's Alleged Gallery in New York. In 1995 he took up photography in earnest. His first book of photographs, Teenage Smokers, 1999, from Alleged Press, won the $50,000 first prize in the 2000 ""Search for Art"" in Milan. In 2002 his second book of photographs, The Golden Age of Neglect, was published by Drago in conjunction with an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. More recently, his work was featured in the bestselling Beautiful Losers, published by Iconoclast. Templeton currently lives and works in Huntington Beach, California, and continues to exhibit, run Toy Machine and skate professionally."
Aaron Rose is an international curator and independent writer. His books include the best-seller, Beautiful Losers and Out & About by Ari Marcopoulos.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great pictures, great read,
This review is from: Beautiful Losers (Hardcover)
Its definately worth $25.17, or whatever price theyve stuck on it by now. Its includes pictures of, and interesting stories about a few of the Beautiful Losers aswell as full pages of artwork (in color). Its no picture book either, in addition to the stories, its got the histories of various subcultures that influenced the artists (skateboarding, graffiti, etc.) So it'll keep you busy for a minute.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Historicly important exhibition catalog with great essays.,
By
This review is from: Beautiful Losers (Hardcover)
Beautiful Losers exhibition is a document of an epoch centered on the twenty year history of street art and culture from the walls of urban landscapes across America to the walls of the dopest west and east coast galleries. Really great essays. Read the one by McCormick, its especially good. Well printed and designed. Everything in this book is imperative to know about if you are an artist, especially young artists in their formative years.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
its good to be a loser,
This review is from: Beautiful Losers (Paperback)
ok- this book is pretty brilliant... despite the fact that the artwork included is a catalogue of some of the most important, interesting and (previously- time will tell??) underground /fringe dwelling artists and contemporary contributors in the last 25 or so years and that in itself is reason enough to love this book, you would be CRAZY not to read the essays... they are insane- so brilliant and you are not even touching the surface of this book unless you read them..
if you have any interest in graf/ skating/ contempory artists / beautiful things / whats going down then youll love beautiful losers and regret very badly that you didnt get to see the exhibition...like i am now.
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