The Q film event has become an essential part of the annual Wiesbaden Days of Design. Following films about typography (Helvetica) and paper (Between the Folds), this year we focused on street art. In collaboration with Caligari FilmBühne, Q presented the documentary “Bomb it” (USA 2007, original version in English) on Sunday, April 18, as a Wiesbaden premiere.

Everyday we see colorful tags and paintings on façades, rail cars, or park benches. Usually, we no long see this “art” consciously. What drives street artists? Is it pure excitement and the thrill of illegality? Is graffiti really artistic? How big is the gap between vandalism, which causes problems, and an art form that can generate hundreds of thousands of Euro at Sotheby’s auctions? “Bomb it” by Jon Reiss explores these and other questions. The filmmaker visited sprayers in five continents and studied the history of graffiti.