In 1997 and 1998 Filmmaker Bob Bryan singlehandedly created, produced & curated the "1st and 2nd International Graffiti Art Competition." This was a first ever event, celebrating Art creations from Spray-Can Artists all around the world. The IGAC took place in the Downtown Museum of Art, Los Angeles California. This beautiful & impressive Collectors Edition, (ART BOOK 1 & ART BOOK 2) commemorates the vast style diversity of the International submissions and winners.
ART BOOK 2 CATEGORIES: Pen & Ink, Sculpture, Tattoos, Trains, and Walls & Murals.
THE GENESIS of GRAFFITI VERITE': Read the Writing on the Wall
"Truth Or Dare" (Featured Article in RAP PAGES MAGAZINE)
Graffiti Verite's Bob Bryan continue to prove that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
GRAFFITI VERITE', the incisive documentary on the lives of Los Angeles Graffiti Artists, blew up like no other graff video to date, leaving behind an unprecedented trail of award recognition, media exposure and education about the Art Form.
Bob Bryan, director, producer and director of photography on the film, accomplished what no other videographer had yet been able to do: create a graffiti documentary with mainstream crossover appeal. "I managed to promote the documentary in a way that didn't just reach some of the old heads that were already in the life, but 'turn-on' people that didn't know anything about Graffiti Art or that had a prejudice against graffiti," Bryan points out. The filmmaker particularly targeted gallery people, educators, librarians and institutions that could be an asset for Hip-Hop and Graffiti Art in a financial sense.
Bryan's aesthetic and technical skills have been acknowledged with film and video competitions worldwide, including the prestigious Council of Int'l Non-Theatrical Events (CINE) Golden Eagle Awards, as well as, a National Educational Media Network, GOLDEN APPLE Award, Cinema in Industry (CINDY) Awards (sponsored by the Association of Visual Communicators (AVC) - not to mention that he's also up for an Emmy this year.
This year also finds Bryan taking it to another level by legitimizing Graffiti Art on an international scale through the creation of the First Annual International Graffiti Art Competition. "I'm taking the credibility that GRAFFITI VERITE' has established and bringing a lot of Graffiti Art to the attention of major institutions and educational organizations," he says. "I've been successful with being able to bring Los Angeles Graffiti Artists up, and now what I want to do is bring the international community of Hip-Hop and Graffiti Art to the attention of a worldwide audience."
Bryan's sole purpose for the establishment of the FIRST INTERNATIONAL GRAFFITI ART COMPETITION is to "...create a forum for the serious examination, illumination, appreciation and recognition of this worldwide Art Form and phenomenon..."
-- By Ben Higa, RAP PAGES
About the Author: By any objective account filmmaker Bob Bryan has been a singularly powerful force in putting the Los Angeles Graffiti Art Movement on the national and international map. GRAFFITI VERITE' is the classic 600 pound guerilla in the room demanding respect and acknowledgement from the coveted Art Circles of Power. Remember that in 1995 Graffiti Artists were being hunted down by vigilantes and the mass media had branded these artists as vandals, gangsters and Tag-bangers. "I always felt that the Graffiti Art revolution was like an Art movement without a good publicist," says Bryan. He was right and from where he stood he wanted to champion the Art and dispel the negative propaganda which prevented people from actually "seeing" the truth and beauty about Graffiti Art. That was the historical backdrop that existed in the mainstream just before GRAFFITI VERITE' was released as "The Truth about Graffiti." GRAFFITI VERITE's above the ground acceptance in pop culture totally changed the mind-set regarding the perception of Graffiti Art. Verite' demanding as it were, that the Art be given the same reflection, respect and consideration as other legitimate Art Movements in the past. His professional interviews were concise, probing and demanding. The Artists were instructed to talk to him like he knew nothing about the Art Form and to break it down. Bob's objective was to educate the viewers to the depth of these artists reality and not have them put up a entertaining facade of GV DOCU-SERIES www.graffitiverite.com "being cool and hip." More importantly GRAFFITI VERITE' gave them a public voice, an PR image imbued with intelligence, artistic credibility and raison d'etre. They were no longer thugs, they were Artists and the hatas had nowhere to go but to slowly fade away or consider taking another look at these Artists! For Bob, the Art, as he saw it, compared and exceeded the stylistic and aesthetically values of such historically infamously radical art movements, such as Pop-Art and Abstract Expressionism. GRAFFITI VERITE' was deliciously minimalist in style by deliberately backing off from the use of contemporary Hip-Hop music imbedded with pounding beats and explicit lyrics or distracting the viewers away from the real content with false special effects. This was about Graffiti Art... period! The total focus was to be the raw reality of the Art and the context in which the Art was created.
