EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP

Revolving around a central question: ‘What constitutes art?’ Exit Through the Gift Shop leads its audience through corridors of deception, drawing us in with its guerrilla imagery whilst simultaneously keeping us at hands length through the seed of doubt that it plants in our minds. Unquestionably the premiere and most popular street artist, Banksy has made a name for himself by creating witty and subversive works of art. He’s a notoriously tricky customer, which placed him somewhat on the back-foot when it came to releasing this, his first feature film. After all, those with a knowledge of Banksy will be watching thinking ‘Can I take what this man has to say seriously?’ or ‘Am I being duped here?’ He has effectively raised our collective guards before we even enter the cinema. The only way to combat this or to at least make the question irrelevant is to make an entertaining film and the film is entertaining because it focuses on the question of what separates a creative spirit from a true artist.

Street art itself has been the subject of many ‘yes, but is it art’ type articles, so it’s fitting that Banksy should explore similar issues. Yet he pushes the issue somewhat further, elucidating the way that mass-manufactured ‘art’ – art created without passion – can beguile and exploit the naiveté of casual art fans. At one stage Banksy declares himself uncertain of the moral of his film. Yet to me a message seeps through this film loud and clear: a thing is of value only when it is created with genuine love – when it manages to impart a piece of the creator’s soul. Without this, a piece of work cannot constitute a work of art.

The film opens with a killer montage of various street artists at work (I’ve still got Richard Hawley’s ‘Tonight the Streets Are Ours’ swimming somewhere through my head) before we are introduced to Thierry Guetta a Frenchmen residing in Los Angeles and Exit Through the Gift Shop’s focus. Guetta is portrayed as an obsessive - first he is obsessed with his camera and the two of them are never seen apart. Through it he documents every aspect of his life, including interactions with his cousin, the street-artist Space Invader. Blundering his way into the world of street art he obtains the role of documentarian of the street artist through perseverance rather than any skill with the camera. He eventually gets into contact with the elusive Banksy who allows Guetta to film him at work – but only from the behind. Banksy suggests that Exit Through the Gift Shop was originally set to be the product of Guetta’s efforts behind the camera as he photographed these street artists at work, but he found Guetta such a fascinating character that the focus of the film switched onto him instead. Indeed. Thankfully we get to see the apparent product of Guetta’s directorial labours – Life Remote Control, a film-within-a-film and a hilariously over-the top piece of film-making. If this is truly Guetta’s doing then it comes off as a failed attempt to appear ‘edgy’ and eye-catching, but, if the footage is edited together by Banksy then it must be regarded as a fun take on the way directors try to maintain the attention of their disinterested ADD-infected audiences.

Not content with merely following these artists around, Guetta seeks to become a street artist in his own right. Adopting the moniker ‘Mr Brainwash’, he takes to copying the works of the street artists he claims to admire. This transformation culminates with Mr Brainwash engineering his debut art show ‘Life is Beautiful’. The show exhibits his work (createdly mostly by a team of worker-elves), which varies from a ‘range’ of Elvis’s brandishing toy guns, various celebrities adorned with a Marilyn-wigs and the Campbell’s soup-can transformed into a spray-can. Beyond the fact that Guetta doesn’t seem to be doing any of the work himself, it’s quite clear that there’s nothing as daring or interesting as Banksy’s best works (of which we see plenty throughout this film and yet never feel like he is the perpetrator of some gimmick, which cannot be said for Guetta) or as influential as Shepard Fairy’s blue-red-Hope campaign poster for Obama. This doesn’t prevent pieces of art being snapped up by keen street-art enthusiasts and Guetta’s show being extended for a number of months. Hell, Madonna even let him design the cover art for her latest Greatest Hits album.

Exit Through the Gift Shop’s authenticity is much debated. I cannot help but feel that an artist with Banksy’s nature would be discontent with a simple documentary even one with as interesting a subject matter as this. The desire to impart one’s own unique artistic flair onto the project would be too strong. It could also be argued that Thierry Guetta’s Mr Brainwash is too clumsy, to oafish and too much of a sheep to have pulled anything like this off himself. We are never presented with any footage of Guetta creating his Banksy rip-offs. Instead we see him walk into a lamppost, fall off a ladder and have to be wheeled to the car on a desk chair. He comes across as something of an oaf. Real or not, the film works as a send up of art culture and the bastardization of the works of Andy Warhol and pop art in general through those looking to make a quick buck. As Banksy says “Warhol repeated iconic images until they became meaningless, but there was still something iconic about them. Thierry really makes them meaningless.” That’s the failing of so many wannabe artists, be they authors, directors or painters – they realise that something is great, but aren’t sure why. As a result their copies can only ever be pale imitations.