Image via Wikipedia
A ‘documentary’ film directed by the reclusive graffiti artist Banksy hit the streets earlier this year after generating some buzz at the Sundance Film festival. As one of the most notoriously secretive guerrilla artists, it was surprising to hear that he was working with such a public medium as film.
For those who are unaware, Banksy, in the UK, together with Shepard Fairey in the US, have raised graffiti street art from a nuisance to a worldwide phenomena. While most people know of Shepard Fairey for his iconic Obama poster, Banksy is less well known in the US but has established himself in the UK with multiple thumb-your-nose displays including fake art he installed at the British Museum (that they later co-opted as part of their collection – hilarious).
Exit through the Gift Shop
“Exit Through the Gift Shop” focuses on a ‘Thierry Guetta’, a French shopkeeper in LA with an obsession for videotaping everything. Thierry, on a visit to France, finds out one of his relatives is a street artist and immediately sets out documenting all that he does. Through his relatives connections, Thierry gets sucked into the world of street art and decides to follow several artists around the world and to create what he says will be a documentary.
Along the way he is introduced to Shepard Fairey in LA and tags along with him on several of his night excursions. Shepard has been quietly making a name for himself in America and one day he introduces Thierry to Banksy who is visiting LA. Realizing this was a rare opportunity to document one of the most reclusive street artists, Thierry manages to convince Banksy to allow him to document some of his work. Banksy agrees on the condition that he gets to see the finished documentary, forcing Thierry to finally compile his random video collection into some semblance of a movie. The result “Life Remote Control” is a mess and Banksy comments to the camera, “I didn’t know if I believed he was a filmmaker or a mental patient with a camera.” Realizing that Thierry has some valuable film in his collection, Banksy offers to take over the footage and encourages Thierry to take up art instead.
Thierry decides to emulate his heroes, Fairey and Banksy, in spades. He develops his own style of over the top art, pasting self portraits all over the city, renaming him self Mr. Brain Wash (MBW for short) and eventually renting an abandoned studio to host a monster art show. The ultimate in production art, Thierry no longer produces anything but directs a crew of dozens of workers in assembling various montages. The show is hyped in the local papers, thousands descend, Fairey is one of the DJs at the show, art pieces fly off the wall at astronomical prices.
The movie is a captivating and up-close glimpse into the world of graffiti artists as they work their craft. But he was able to make this more than a boring piece about graffiti art. It also allowed him to take a swipe at the consumerism and crass commercialization that has captured the art establishment. Even as he lampoons Thierry’s art show and subsequent canonization, Banksy’s own artworks have been fetching astronomical sums. One of his pieces – Space Girl and Bird – was auctioned off for $576,000, twenty times the auctioneer’s initial estimate. It looks like Banksy was able to have his cake and eat it too.
So the question really is whether “Exit” is a ‘real’ documentary or an elaborately staged fiction. The real kicker is that there really are references to a “Thierry Guetta” show held in June 2008 at CBS’s Columbia studios in an article in the LA Weekly as well as photos from that show. If this documentary was an hoax, it was on a scale that would out-Borat Borat. It seems the Academy thinks it is real enough to include it in the short list to be voted on for this year’s Oscar for Documentary feature. Regardless of what you think, this is a fascinating movie, a great diversion and a wonderful window into this countercultural world.
365 Days of Netflix 