Exit Through The Gift Shop

Director: Banksy
(2010)

This is essentially the story of Thierry Guetta, an ebullient Frenchman with a penchant for videography whose life completely changed when he serendipitously discovered his cousin, Invader, creating colorful tile mosaics of vintage video game characters meant for illicit installation on the streets of Paris. This opened the door to a world that Guetta would entrench himself in for the next decade.

Guetta forced his way deep into the street art subculture, and captured mesmerizing footage of street artist icons Shepard Fairey (who gained mainstream attention thanks to his Barack Obama “HOPE” portrait) and British artist Banksy (who has remained an enigma despite the fact that his oeuvre has fetched a fortune and captured the imagination of people across the world). Guetta proved to be an invaluable asset to the community, acting not only as a videographer to document the illicit installations, but also as an assistant, chauffeur, navigator, and lookout.



Midway through the film, the focus changes onto Guetta himself, who takes on the moniker Mr. Brainwash and masterminds an art show of his own under Banksy’s commission. While many docs change their focus midway through, they often lose their sense of balance as a result. Exit Through the Gift Shop manages to shift it’s spotlight in a way that harmonizes the film as a whole – evoking questions about the meaning, value, and commercialization of art in general.

Mr. Brainwash prepares for his exhibition, titled “Life is Beautiful,” with the mindset of quantity over quality. Much of his work was produced by mindlessly spray painting canvases or scanning and photoshoping existing images, all executed by an army of minions. Some of his pieces so closely resemble the work of his inspirations that Mr. B comes across as a copycat creator. Yet, with some clever marketing, he defied the odds. He made the cover of LA Weekly in June of 2008, had over 7,000 people attend his “Life is Beautiful” show on its opening night, and in the end, he netted nearly a million dollars in sales.

Banksy clearly gave rise to Mr. Brainwash. While Guetta claims he put everything he had into the exhibition (he even refinanced his mortgage) it seems likely that Banksy put some of his own capital into the project, ensuring that Mr. B could afford the smoke and mirrors to dupe the Los Angeles scene. Once could argue that Banksy has such an adept understanding of the art world that he knew he would be able to ensure that Mr. Brainwash would be a success, and therefore essentially scripted the end of this documentary by playing on the credulous nature of art connoisseurs.

“I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit” via WebUrbanist

Banksy himself has shown contempt with commercialization in the past, including the above piece which he published to his website shortly after some of his own pieces were auctioned by Sotheby’s in Feb 2007. So it’s not unimaginable that he would direct a film that denigrates the idea of making money off of street art. From The NY Times:

Asked whether a film that takes shots at the commercialization of street art would devalue his own work, Banksy wrote: “It seemed fitting that a film questioning the art world was paid for with proceeds directly from the art world. Maybe it should have been called ‘Don’t Bite the Hand that Feeds You.’ ”

There is widespread speculation regarding the validity and scope of the film being a hoax. Perhaps most intriguing is the theory of blogger Rebecca Cannon, who postulated that:

If Guetta is a hoax, there also exists the possibility that these artworks are actually produced by Banksy himself, in a style deliberately intended to suggest inferior artistic skill. Should the hoax ever be proven, and Banksy’s hand revealed to be the creator of the works, a further hoax on the art world may unfold in which Banksy is found to have tricked collectors into passing-up the opportunity to purchase his works for so little, rather than having paid too much for Guetta’s.

Considering the fact that Banksy has kept his identity unknown for years, it is unlikely that the full truth regarding this film will ever be unmasked. In the end, it’s inconsequential. Hoax or not, Exit Through the Gift Shop is, it’s a thoroughly entertaining film.

official film site

Trivial Tidbits:

• In 2004, Banksy put up one of his own paintings in the Louvre (a Mona Lisa replica with a yellow smiley face)
  
• In an interview with The Guardian, Banksy revealed that his parents think he is "a painter and decorator"