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BEAUTIFUL LOSERS:
THE DISPOSSESSED INHERIT THE CREATIVE EARTH
Come and hear a handful of gifted art-makers recall a collective dream
The film is about the process of identifying and articulating something that they each know instinctively - but just what that thing is, it's hard to put into words. It's something that shows itself in the need to make art, and in the
different ways they each find to express themselves. It's something to do with the reason that none of them fits neatly into any other social circle.
Perhaps it is most clearly seen in the collective need to release creativity.
As Mike Mills says, "if you're not dispossessed, why make art? ... if you're not feeling rejected you won't have this need to save your life making something." This need to make art is what each member first came to find within themselves, but then it also became their ticket to belonging in this new, formless social sphere.
The group is comprised of a wide range of art styles and forms; from the film making of Harmony Korine, to the photography of Ed Templeton, the street art of Stephen Powers, or the ethereal animation art of Geoff McFetridge - the sheer volume of talent is, at times, overwhelming.
Yet it is not iust a story which celebrates the talent of these people. Beautiful Losers pushes deeper into something else behind. In and through it all, each member is asking deeper questions about value. What makes them valuable, and how do you measure the success of their art? Having rejected so many of the standard forms of wealth and success, there is a sombre reflection on 'the point of it all. Many of the cast are quick to shrug off ideas that they have hit on anything of"worth', instead they are painfully conscious that nothing lasts, and nothing is cool forever.
At times this journey feels passive - as if the artists themselves are watching the movie with us, floating downstream in something that the universe has decided for them. No one seems exactly sure what 'it' is, but it seems to have something to do with expressing, and sharing that expression with others. At the opening of his exhibition at Alleged Galleries, Ed Templeton reflects, "I think it was successful" then he follows that up by explaining "all I hoped for was for people to come and see it, and that's what happened."
Now, more than a decade since the movie first aired, their story is far from over. To commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the film, RVCA collaborated with Aaron Rose to put on the exhibition, "Now & Then: A Decade of Beautiful Losers" at the Hole Gallery in New York City. While
it is evident that each artists has consolidated their style and refined their outputs, something of the former urgency feels missing. Something of the grit that seemed to safeguard the authenticity is absent. It is a feeling which reverberates that question which has echoed throughout the whole film - what measure can you give for success? Barry McGee articulates it in these words, "I'm wary of this idea that you have to get bigger, more exposure, bigger audiences. It's all bullshit to me. What's so great about that, you know?"
All of this seems to come together so simply in the title itself, Beautiful Losers'. The two halves of exactly what sets each of these people apart from the rest of the world - beauty and losing. They share an acute sense of beauty and skill for creating it, while disregarding any of society's views of success. They are happy to be labeled as losers, if it means preserving what is most true.
What Aaron Rose manages to do in this film, is to express something which language seems unable to say. He brings us into a group of people who are all looking at the same world, but with completely different eyes.
He invites us to sit with them for a while and to reflect on these ideas of belonging, expression, and value. And for that little while, to seek with them something which is free, rebellious, and above all, honest.
But it's not entirely their own fault, the poor little guys. We did this to Luna Park - we, the Australian public. Like a double minded boyfriend whose standards would require a successful partner to rend themselves in two (or at the very least, formulate some compartmentalising potion, a la Jekyll and Hyde), we have absentmindedly asked Luna Park to both 'be itself and also please, for the love of God, be anything other than yourself'
Now I know what you're thinking - mate, this sounds awfully harsh. I mean, don't we all love that terrifying face down by the harbour? Isn't a giant paper-mache clown skull exactly the kind of thing we would be desperate to build if it didn't already exist? And I take your point (while worrying about your taste in landmarks), perhaps I'm being too hard. After all, the amusement park has made it clear that they're "just for fun'.
Let me try to explain.
It's 1935 - that precious pocket between world wars - so it's fair to say that a novelty carnival might very well be what the people want. A few sideshow games, a place to buy fairy floss, and a room with very big slides (yes, slides for adults to slide down). These are simpler times. Scientists have very recently discovered (and miscategorised) Pluto as the 9th planet, all
TVs are in black and white, and as yet no one has invented the slinky or the ballpoint pen. So it's just possible that a park decorated with all the reckless abandon of a lightbulb obsessed, pre-boomer generation, offering slippery-dips for adults who had never used an aerosol, is a welcome novelty.
The complication, however, comes when Sydney's mum asks him to clean his bedroom, and like a little hoarder-in-the-making, he finds it oh-so-difficult to let go of anything that even remotely resembles 'history'. The English settlers in Australia, whose capital city can literally be traced back to the first century (yes, the first one. The one where years were measured in double digits, like the number 61 for example) now had a crisis of identity. Cities are meant to be historical places, but in 1935 that big, famous bridge was brand new and even the opera house was four decades away from existence.
(It goes some way to explaining the fetish that Sydney has for 'history', when you realise we have heritage listed houses built as recently as 1960. "Historical" we say to ourselves, "we must strive to be historical". Hysterical might be a more accurate term)
So this post-war, pre-war, rattling cage of carnival rides sits in unspeakably prime real estate on the harbour and probably always will. The issue isn't just that the rides are awful, the games are rigged, and it's going to cost you over $200 to take the family there for one day. The real problem is that as you wander around, deep down, you feel as though this might be fun if you were, say, from the 1930s. You can't escape the sense that most of the appeal is the thought that this is how old-timey people used to have fun, this is a little taste of life back then'. No one goes to Luna Park because it's fun in and of itself, we go because it's fun to pretend.
So now Luna Jekyll and Luna Hyde look at us from two different worlds. On the one hand, desperate to be that time machine to the past, that well-preserved slice of days gone by. While at the same time trying to declare "I'm still fun" with all the confidence of a dad in a backwards baseball cap. Sorry little Luna, you probably were fun once, and it's not your fault that we didn't let you stay in the past. We preserved you largely for want of things to preserve. We set our nostalgia on you, even when you were still new. At a loss for landmarks that give the city any sort of coherence, we grabbed the bridge, the beaches, the opera house, centre point tower, and this funny little cluster of amusements.
Now it's too late. You're a fixture, Luna. You're part of our identity now. Tourism kind of likes you, you help us feel historical, and it's sort of nice to have some lights punctuate the dark harbour at night. But you're still your own obstacle. Trapped between an obligation to stay the same, and a desire to be liked. It's a widening gap that spans what people want and what you can offer. What a challenging task - to try to improve without changing.
But somehow, you keep on smiling. That brave and terrifying face never reveals the pain.