Season 4, Ep. 6: Dirty Hands: The Art and Crimes of David Choe

Saturday School Podcast

Skipped school last week, but we're back - and this week's episode is about Harry Kim's 2008 documentary Dirty Hands: The Art and Crimes of David Choe. Artist David Choe is kind of the ultimate Asian American troublemaker in ways that are both empowering and problematic. He exists in the often breathtaking intersection of beauty, insanity, genius, violence, machismo, perseverance, addiction, vulgarity, turns to God that are quickly cast aside so he can indulge in his next whims, and general ridiculousness. The film covers seven years of his life in his 20s -- he's in his 40s now -- and as we watch a documentary that makes the audience feel like an accomplice, we marvel at the aspects we still deeply appreciate, while raising new concerns and questions we weren't thinking about while watching it 10 years ago.