Daily Archives: March 14, 2009

Dirty Hands : The Art & Crimes of David Choe

Dirty Hands : The Art & Crimes of David Choe

Dirty Hands : The Art & Crimes of David Choe is the craziest documentary we have ever scene. It chronicles the life of a young near-schizophrenic street artist David Choe, who does everything that comes from his delinquent imagination. Director Harry Kim goes through eight haphazard years filled with mayhem to follow and deliver a portrait of David Choe.

Choe avoids the legal constraints of society to “freely” create his art and devises numerous criminal schemes that afford him to hitchhike across the globe. His nonchalant law-breaking style lands him in jail several times leading to his eventual demise in solitary confinement in a Tokyo prison cell. He resurfaces with a new religion and returns home with hope to overcome his criminal temptations and repair his severed relationships. We see Choe’s unwillingness to grow up, his struggle to make it as an artist and his fight to hold on to his sanity for his life and burgeoning art career.



Director Harry Kim fully captures the complexity of Choe through a collage work of archived home video from Choe’s childhood, still photographs, intimate artwork, animation and eight years of footage shot while on the road with the artist.

Check out the documentary at a film festival near you. Here’s the website for Dirty Hands and David Choe.

Dirty Hands: The Art & Crimes of David Choe