Exit Through the Gift Shop premiered at Sundance in 2010 and after widespread acclaim received a nomination for Best Documentary at the 2011 Oscars. As usual, I was too caught up with watching the Best Picture nominees to seek out the nominated documentaries, which is why it has taken me more than a year to watch this movie. But better late than never.
The director behind this documentary is Banksy, a well-known English graffiti artist. He appears in the movie at times, but his face is kept hidden and his voice is distorted in order to preserve his anonymity. The documentary tells the story of Thierry Guetta, a Frenchman with a vintage clothing shop in LA who discovers that his cousin is Invader, a well-known street artist. This discovery intrigues Guetta, who decides that he wants to follow Invader around with a video camera and document his artwork. In this way, Guetta enters into the world of street art and he becomes obsessed and inspired by the artists and their creations. He goes on various expeditions with artists, helping them find supplies and the perfect walls to serve as canvases for their work and frantically documents their every move so that their art will survive on film even if it is later removed by the authorities. He claims he is collecting this footage to make a documentary about street art, but in actual fact, he is just amassing tons of footage without any attempt to put it together in one coherent narrative.
As he gets to know more street artists, one name keeps cropping up: Banksy. Finally, Guetta gets his chance to meet Banksy himself when he comes to LA to create an exhibition of his work. Through a series of events, Banksy becomes very impressed with Guetta's enthusiasm and loyalty and asks to see his documentary. Guetta frantically puts together a rambly, painful 90-minute film that contains flashes of all of the artwork he has documented over the years but lacks any structure whatsoever. Shocked, Banksy decides to take over Guetta's footage and put together a documentary himself. In the meantime, he suggests that Guetta should try his hand at creating art of his own. Which leads to the creation of Mr. Brainwash, Guetta's street artist persona. Relying on everything he has learned about street art through filming others, Guetta decides to take an empty TV studio in LA and create a massive exhibition of street art. He recruits a team of artists and bombards them with ideas for the artwork he wants to make. The whole enterprise is disorganized, chaotic, and insane, yet somehow (and despite an accident that leaves him with a broken leg), Guetta manages to pull together an art show that is hyped up to epic proportions and even graces the cover of LA Weekly. Mr. Brainwash is a huge success and thus, a new street artist is born, much to the bewilderment of Banksy, who never dreamed this odd Frenchman would become an overnight sensation capable of selling a million dollars of artwork in the course of one week.
The story of Mr. Brainwash's ascendancy is absurd and extravagant, which explains why people are still confused as to whether Exit Through the Gift Shop is in fact an elaborate hoax. I myself was perplexed on this point, because it felt like such a mockumentary about the commercialization of street art, and how a creative art form that was meant to be anti-establishment and anti-capitalism suddenly became an extremely lucrative and mainstream career move. However, Banksy and the producers of this film insist that everything depicted in the documentary is true. Frankly, the story is just too insane to be made up, and the people who have investigated Guetta's backstory say that the film's portrayal is accurate. More importantly, Mr. Brainwash has continued to conduct exhibitions of his work, so there are certainly people buying his artwork who regard him as a legitimate artist.
As you can see from this post, Exit Through the Gift Shop is a complex and puzzling documentary that is rather hard to explain. It is extremely well-done and offers a glimpse into a shadowy world of art that is created by immensely talented and passionate people. But as the movie progresses, it becomes clear that this art form is migrating from the fringes of society to the commercial mainstream. The work we see throughout the movie ranges from truly creative to someone just spray painting slogans on a wall. Where do we draw the line between something that is vandalism and something that is art? Who is to say that a concrete wall can't be a canvas for an inspiring piece of artwork? And how do you put a price tag on this work when it was initially done just to make a statement and not for profit? Everyone has a different answer to these questions (or if you're like me, you have no answers at all). But regardless of what your opinions on street art might be, everyone can agree that Exit Through the Gift Shop is a brilliant piece of film-making, a work of art unto itself.
The director behind this documentary is Banksy, a well-known English graffiti artist. He appears in the movie at times, but his face is kept hidden and his voice is distorted in order to preserve his anonymity. The documentary tells the story of Thierry Guetta, a Frenchman with a vintage clothing shop in LA who discovers that his cousin is Invader, a well-known street artist. This discovery intrigues Guetta, who decides that he wants to follow Invader around with a video camera and document his artwork. In this way, Guetta enters into the world of street art and he becomes obsessed and inspired by the artists and their creations. He goes on various expeditions with artists, helping them find supplies and the perfect walls to serve as canvases for their work and frantically documents their every move so that their art will survive on film even if it is later removed by the authorities. He claims he is collecting this footage to make a documentary about street art, but in actual fact, he is just amassing tons of footage without any attempt to put it together in one coherent narrative.
As he gets to know more street artists, one name keeps cropping up: Banksy. Finally, Guetta gets his chance to meet Banksy himself when he comes to LA to create an exhibition of his work. Through a series of events, Banksy becomes very impressed with Guetta's enthusiasm and loyalty and asks to see his documentary. Guetta frantically puts together a rambly, painful 90-minute film that contains flashes of all of the artwork he has documented over the years but lacks any structure whatsoever. Shocked, Banksy decides to take over Guetta's footage and put together a documentary himself. In the meantime, he suggests that Guetta should try his hand at creating art of his own. Which leads to the creation of Mr. Brainwash, Guetta's street artist persona. Relying on everything he has learned about street art through filming others, Guetta decides to take an empty TV studio in LA and create a massive exhibition of street art. He recruits a team of artists and bombards them with ideas for the artwork he wants to make. The whole enterprise is disorganized, chaotic, and insane, yet somehow (and despite an accident that leaves him with a broken leg), Guetta manages to pull together an art show that is hyped up to epic proportions and even graces the cover of LA Weekly. Mr. Brainwash is a huge success and thus, a new street artist is born, much to the bewilderment of Banksy, who never dreamed this odd Frenchman would become an overnight sensation capable of selling a million dollars of artwork in the course of one week.
The story of Mr. Brainwash's ascendancy is absurd and extravagant, which explains why people are still confused as to whether Exit Through the Gift Shop is in fact an elaborate hoax. I myself was perplexed on this point, because it felt like such a mockumentary about the commercialization of street art, and how a creative art form that was meant to be anti-establishment and anti-capitalism suddenly became an extremely lucrative and mainstream career move. However, Banksy and the producers of this film insist that everything depicted in the documentary is true. Frankly, the story is just too insane to be made up, and the people who have investigated Guetta's backstory say that the film's portrayal is accurate. More importantly, Mr. Brainwash has continued to conduct exhibitions of his work, so there are certainly people buying his artwork who regard him as a legitimate artist.
As you can see from this post, Exit Through the Gift Shop is a complex and puzzling documentary that is rather hard to explain. It is extremely well-done and offers a glimpse into a shadowy world of art that is created by immensely talented and passionate people. But as the movie progresses, it becomes clear that this art form is migrating from the fringes of society to the commercial mainstream. The work we see throughout the movie ranges from truly creative to someone just spray painting slogans on a wall. Where do we draw the line between something that is vandalism and something that is art? Who is to say that a concrete wall can't be a canvas for an inspiring piece of artwork? And how do you put a price tag on this work when it was initially done just to make a statement and not for profit? Everyone has a different answer to these questions (or if you're like me, you have no answers at all). But regardless of what your opinions on street art might be, everyone can agree that Exit Through the Gift Shop is a brilliant piece of film-making, a work of art unto itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment