Banksy - Exit Through the Gift Shop

This movie is about people that call themselves artists but do not take time to perfect their art and to discover their style, they only think about the money and the publicity that they are going to get. I thought the film was funny at some points and Thierry Guetta aka: ‘Mr Brainwash’ was a really funny guy, I thought the film in general was really interesting for street artists but also for artists in general, because it talks about how artists need to take time to discover who they are and their style of art and also states that people should be careful with the people they consider “artists”.

Although the movie was made by Banksy, the movie is not all about him but a guy called Thierry Guetta and how he failed to create a movie that he was making to show street art and street artists so Banksy took advantage of that and created a movie about Thierry himself.

In my opinion, I think the movie/film is a hoax from Banksy because it’s all too coincidental, it all fits too perfectly but I don’t think it really matters if it is legit or just a hoax because I believe the message Banksy is trying to deliver to artist/people that buy art work and people in general is really important and interesting. I believe that the message Banksy was trying to sell was that a lot of people consider themselves artists but all they really care about is if they will be known and how much publicity they are going to get. The title of the movie says it all “Exit Through the Gift Shop” meaning that ‘Mr. Brainwash’ was a lot more interested in the money than in street art, like him a lot of artists are more concerned with money than creating art and getting a message across.

I believe Thierry Guetta (Mr. Brainwash) is not a real street artist because his work is really repetitive and he copies a lot of other artist’s work, I believe that a true artist comes up with his own ideas and takes time to create his work/art. This movie totally changed my view on street art and street artists, it made me realise that not all street artists are genuine artists and that not all art is created with intelligence and time, actually a lot of gallery art is copied from other artists to sell.

I think it is possible to draw a line between street art and vandalism; I like to think that when the art is original, interesting and it sends a message to people it should be appreciated and considered to be ART but if the art is unoriginal or just people trying to mess with others peoples properties than it should be considered vandalism and some sort of action should be taken.

This movie is a great example of people/artists just wanting to commercialise art and it really does succeed in criticising the art world because it talks a lot about how anybody can become an ‘artist’ and sell their art for thousands because that’s all that a lot of people care about these days.

I personally love street art because I think it’s really interesting how artists like Banksy for example can send such a great message through art. I don’t think that street artists go too far because isn’t that whole point of street art: getting to the highest point, getting as far as they can get. That being said I’m not against street art, because the people own the streets so they decide what they want to see every day in the public spaces ‘our own spaces’, but I think that the people who can make art and get a message across are the ones who should be doing street art. I think street art is dangerous and exhilarating. Sometimes it’s good to experience the adrenaline of creating new art.