Exit Through the Gift Shop

I recently watched the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop. Going into it, I thought it was going to be a film about the famous and anonymous street artist Banksy. I've always been interested in his work and wanted to learn more about him. The film ended up being much more than that and asked some very important questions about contemporary art, what makes an artist, and the messages art, particularly street art and pop art, are sending. For those who have not seen the film it is made by Banksy using footage captured by the eccentric Thierry Guetta, a french immigrant from Los Angeles, now known as “Mr. Brainwash.” It captures the story of Guetta as he transforms from curiously filming his cousin the street artist “Invader,” to becoming addicted to capturing any street artists that he could, his obsession with Banksy, through to his rapid development as a pop/street artist selling millions of dollars of art work. Guetta films hours upon hours of graffiti artists at work becoming totally engrossed in the world of art to the point where he puts everything on the line to promote his own name. Interviews with and footage of artists including Banksy and Shepard Fairey, who got to know Guetta very well, give further insight the elaborate ways in which “Mr. Brainwash” developed into a sensation. The end of the film calls into question “rules” about art and whether or not the massive amount of work that Guetta creates in such a short time is actually of any value or if people are just suckers for anything that they are told they should appreciate. For me this called into question what we have been talking about in regards to media literacy. If you reassign the idea that media in a way tells us what we should buy, what we should eat, and what we should watch to the art world, then you essentially have art produced by “Mr. Brainwash.” As his huge art exhibition was haphazardly thrown together as was much of the art work displayed the value of the art itself is really called into question. But regardless, due to it’s publicity in the LA Weekly there were thousands of people who came, saw, and bought. Along with questioning the consumer culture of the art world the film brings up questions about obsession, messages in art work, and obviously the controversial world of street art. I think this is an important film for any artists, art educators, or those intrigued by the art world to see.