Exit through the Gift Shop (2010)

Directed by: Banksy | 97 minutes | documentary | Starring: Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Thierry Guetta, Rhys Ifans, Space Invader, Joshua Levine

The witty, fascinating and provoking discussion ‘Exit Through the Giftshop’ is a documentary – or mockumentary? – which in its title already gives away a lot about the nature and agenda of the film. At the very least, it is about the way the “art world” treats art and how it is commercialized. The film shows how the work of the controversial street artist Banksy, famous among other things for his subversive paintings on the wall between Israel and the Palestinian settlements, suddenly brings in millions after he decides to exhibit his work in a remote warehouse and here crowds of people, including celebrities such as Brad Pitt and Jude Law. An art collector explains that a “genuine Banksy” has become highly sought after in art circles, and is a legitimate part of any serious collection. The street performer himself, now effectively part of the establishment he always kicked at, looks at it all in amazement and states that it was never about the money for him.

The question is why exactly so much money is paid for his work. Is it because his work is actually appreciated on an artistic level? Is it perhaps because he has framed and exhibited his work in a conventional way (rather than merely painting on buildings) so that it can now be more easily accepted by the art world? Or is it because of the much publicity he has generated through his exhibition, where his attraction was a lifelike elephant painted with pink paint (as the symbolic, undeniable truth that people do not [wensen te] see)?

The underlying questions about the nature of art and the art world only become more pressing and explicit as the film progresses. Until Banksy’s commercial and artistic success, the film behaves like a fairly conventional street art documentary, but from this moment on, which marks a turning point in the film, the tone only becomes more jocular and ironic. Filmer Thierry Guetta will now, under his brand new stage name Mr Brainwash, make art himself, inspired by the protagonists of his (alleged) documentary about street art. With no name recognition or a single creative bone in his body, he manages to produce and exhibit a truckload of works of art in a very short time and by creating a lot of hype in the media he knows, just like Banksy before him, a gigantic to attract crowds. A crowd who see him as the next best thing in the art world, assign all kinds of meanings to his work, and, again, are willing to pay huge amounts for his work. What is going on here?

‘Exit Through the Giftshop’ is everything at once. It’s an amusing tale by a somewhat obsessive film-maker, Thierry Guetta, who gives an interesting glimpse into the “street art scene”, or rather some of the greats in this field, which Guetta gets to follow closely. He climbs buildings with them in the middle of the night, stands guard in case the police show up, and records the creations of his idols in great detail. It’s exciting enough to watch these men at work and to be exposed to their work, and combined with Guetta’s comedic commentary, this is enough for a successful movie experience. Lighthearted and slightly informative.

However, the film has more to offer than just entertainment and information. ‘Exit Through the Giftshop’ continuously stimulates the viewer to enter into a discussion with himself about the value he attributes to art(work) and the world around it, as well as about the authenticity of the documentary itself. When Guetta himself, without much creative inspiration or background, starts tinkering, and he produces one “work of art” after another, as if it came off an assembly line, you as a viewer are inclined to immediately delegate everything to the scrap heap. That can’t be art. It is, of course, anything but original or inspired that Guetta almost exclusively copies other artists – such as his research subjects Shepard Fairey and Banksy, as well as Warhol – but if some of his works were signed with Warhol, it would take on a completely different meaning.

So what exactly is art? Or when does something become art? Should a work be viewed completely apart from all context in order to be able to make an honest judgment about it? Or is knowledge of the maker, his intentions or background essential for the correct appreciation of art? And if the intentions and the person behind the art are essential, can anything be art, as long as the thought behind it legitimizes it? If something makes a statement, can even something as trivial and “ordinary” as a urinal – such as Marcel Duchamp’s “fountain” – be considered art? It is a question that will probably never be answered, but that will always have to be asked.

What the film also shows to a certain extent is that art is only created in the interaction between the consumer/spectator and the work itself. A creator can have put all kinds of complex layers in his artwork, if these are not removed by anyone, can you really say that they are in the artwork (a bit like the philosophical question of whether a tree that nobody has heard fall actually has fallen)? Conversely, a work that has been totally ignored, and without any vision behind it, can be regarded as profound, according to the meanings a viewer attributes to it or “reads” into it. Such a completely subjective approach is simultaneously liberating and paralyzing. You can usually expect a reasonable degree of vision and/or artistic qualities, but the discussion about objectivity and standards here remains an interesting and necessary one.

Many of the visitors to Mr Brainwash’s mega exhibition, entitled ‘Life is Beautiful’, see a great deal of (artistic) vision and social criticism in the works. One of the kindest explanations for this is that art (assessment) is indeed subjective and everyone can see something different in a work depending on his or her personal “luggage”. One of the arguments that the filmmaker – whether this is really Banksy or someone else – makes is that the public and the art world are simply very susceptible to hype. Mr Brainwash’s exhibition was announced with great fanfare, Guetta himself put a cleverly used quote from Banksy on city walls for promotion, and LA Weekly even ran a major article on it. As a result, thousands of people lined up and started to believe in his qualities. If something is proclaimed often enough, or with sufficient authority, the public is inclined to take it for granted, as history has of course often taught us in the case of messages or truths proclaimed by governments – nicely satirized. in Barry Levinson’s ‘Wag the Dog’. That it also seems to work that way with the naturally subjective assessments of art is perhaps not very surprising, but at least interesting.

There is a lot of discussion among critics and viewers about whether ‘Exit Through the Giftshop’ is completely authentic. Is it a real documentary, or is everything staged to make a point about art and the art world? It’s not entirely clear what’s really there, but at least it seems that the documentation of street artists Invader, Shepard Fairey, and Banksy actually happened that way. Of course, this can also be questioned – as it is remarkable that these men confide in Guetta so much – but the interactions between Guetta and the artists, and the recordings themselves, come across as genuine. From the moment Banksy urges Guetta to make his film and turns it into an impossibly bungled whole – with an over-the-top title and introduction and an ADHD pace that would make Jochem Meyer tired – the antennas of the viewer will go up. When the commentary on Mr Brainwash’s artistic paths also becomes increasingly cynical and ironic, it seems clear that this was a premeditated plan and that the film as a whole is intended as a satire. But documentary or mockumentary, it doesn’t really matter for the value of the film itself. In any case, the film offers a very entertaining look at street art and the art world, shows how art is viewed and judged by the masses, and examines in a general sense what art is. By whom and how the film was made is irrelevant: ‘Exit Through the Gifshop’ is essential.