It opens with a montage, the camera panning over canvases covered with bewitching, radical art; the artists paint and narrate, speaking on the people, places and things from which the work came; an indie or punk soundtrack interjects into the film. Monterey director Tanem Davidson drops us into this dynamic brew by way of his documentary New Brow: Contemporary Underground Art, about a new movement called “underground art.”

It’s a brand new bag. The godfathers of the swelling sub-genre – Ed Roth, Robert Smith, R. Crumb – came of age in the 1960s and ‘70s. Its name hasn’t even been settled on; in its early stages, Davidson’s comprehensive doc was titled Lowbrow: Rise of the Underground.

Though the film’s production values are planted in DIY soil, there are stars in this constellation (name-drop alert): Zap Comix, L.A.’s hot-as-hell Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine, San Francisco’s Shooting Gallery (New Brow’s co-producer), collectors like Supersize Me director Morgan Spurlock; cultural cues from punk, hot rod and kustom cars, tattoo and skateboarding; and artists (the doc is chockful of them) like Anne Faith Nicolls, Shawn Barber, Shepard Fairey (of the red-and-blue Obama posters), Anthony Ausgang, Ron English, Francesco LoCastro, Van Arno and more.

“Oh, we can like art?” artist Tim Biskup mocks rhetorically.

“Underground art is by people for people,” says a tattooed Juxtapoz magazine advertising director, William Haugh. “As opposed to the antiquated cliche in New York.”

Underground art has been marginalized by the establishment art community (“art mafia,” says a spunky Camille Rose Garcia), but in its exile it grew stronger. In contrast to the establishment, it is accessible, not elitist; raw, not formal; visual, not conceptual; California, not New York. You’ve seen this work, somewhere, in some form – maybe you even liked it. You just didn’t know it had a name. This film will introduce you.

New Brow: Contemporary Underground Art is having it’s world premier at the Golden State Theatre 9pm Friday, March 27, at 417 Alvarado St., Monterey. $10. 372-4555, www.goldenstatetheatre.com. It is followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers, and accompanied by an art exhibit, The Best of Underground Artists: Selected Artists from the Film New Brow.