Exit through the Gift Shop
POINT-COUNTERPOINT WITH ROB KINNEY
Rob’s Point:
This is the most self-serving movie I have ever seen, which is saying a lot. The famous street artist/director Banksy casts himself as artist, pied-piper, enigma, mastermind and cultural force while he casts his “friend” Thierry as the obsessive, no-talent, parasite who dupes the art world (with the help of Banksy, of course). The funny part is, I actually like Thierry at the end of this movie more than Banksy. I’ll explain.
Thierry is not a filmmaker, he is just a filmer. He likes to video tape everything and just put the film in a box, never to be watched. He starts filming street artists - all of the famous ones (Space Invader, Shepard Fairey), except for the biggest artist: Banksy. When he finally meets Banksy, he has trouble describing how excited he is and what the meeting means to him. When I watched this scene, I just imagined Banksy saying “be sure to put that scene in where this idiot can’t contain himself when describing me. Yeah, that will make me look really good.”
Banksy then starts showing Thierry an insider’s-look at his studio. He even shows him a whole bunch of money that he made, but did not distribute for fear of getting in trouble. In the movie he says “I don’t know what to do with it.” But the answer is clear: He put it in this movie. Thierry then makes a terrible movie with all the footage he shot. Banksy says “Ill take it from here. Why don’t you leave and become an artist.” Banksy then makes this film, which I am sure he thinks is amazing. And puts all of his favorite art in it so he looks great and blacks his face out and disguises his voice (which is very annoying) throughout so that his identity won’t be exposed.
Meanwhile, Thierry - now Mr. Brainwash - is struggling to put on a show in LA. He has mortgaged his life and is floundering. So Banksy - humanitarian that he is - sends some “people” to help him and even writes a somewhat mean/funny note in support of MBW. And what do you know, the show actually happens and Mr. Brainwash sells $1 million worth of art despite being a complete idiot (according to Banksy). The film is strewn with comments disparaging Thierry. He is an “idiot,” he is just “a man with a camera and probably has mental problems,” and his staff says that they “will never do another MBW show,” and that he is a “complete moron.” This is all juxtaposed with people praising Banksy, his art being sold at Sotheby’s, celebrities showing up to his show and his notoriety growing.
But this is the thing: while Banksy wants Thierry to come off as the idiot who fooled the art world, I see him as a normal guy who wants to do more with his life. Sure, he has shortcomings, but he would never make a movie disparaging his friend. That’s just not how Thierry rolls. There is a rumor that Thierry actually is Banksy. I went back through the movie and considered this whole thing being a hoax. I don’t buy it. I admit that Banksy’s art is clever/funny/original. I just don’t like how he portrayed himself in this movie.
Counterpoint:
All docs about artists showcase that’s artist’s work. Painter/sculptor Vik Muniz was the subject of Waste Land, also nominated for a Documentary Oscar this year. But few other documentaries, if any, are directed by the very artist being featured. Perhaps this explains why Exit through the Gift Shop can come off as an obnoxious exercise in self-prescribed accolades. But it’s also why the film is such a monumental feat.
Banksy is an artist of dangerous cunning and acerbic wit, who has managed to entertain and enthrall the art world while simultaneously snubbing it. Street art has been his primary form until this point. Graffiti has grown organically out of the socio-political circumstances in which property and infrastructure are used by the ruling class to marginalize the poor; vandalism is an act of defiance against actual and perceived oppression. Banksy has excelled at imbuing this form with explosive, thoughtful content, thus raising it to the level of high art, or expensive art anyway. That such art has become a commodity to the very bourgeoise who help perpetuate its own vitality (with their implicit aiding and abetting of unequal living conditions worldwide) is the delicious irony that fuels Exit through the Gift Shop, Banksy’s first foray into non-vandal art, though similar in spirit.
This film is dubbed a documentary, which is the first slippery fact that Banksy presents. Of course, every film is a documentary of actors acting. Additionally, cameras alter the way reality unfolds. It’s important to keep such things in mind as this story reveals itself, because it remains unclear what is real, what is constructed, and what actually matters. We are presented with Thierry Guetta, a jolly buffoonish type who gives us a view into this world of street art. It is his eyes through which we initially view Exit through the Gift Shop, and it stands to reason that he is likable and relatable. But make no mistake: this is a Banksy film. The credits tell us so right away, and it is expected that the movie highlight his art. That it goes above and beyond merely filming the relics of Banksy’s studio, or simply showing us his pranks in real time is what makes this such a terrific film.
In the past, Banksy has painted images of beauty and humanity in juxtaposition to environments of violence, as he has done in Israel, and in militarized or surveilled parts of Britain. He has mocked our era’s grotesque horror and ubiquitous consumption by combining them to absurdist degrees (Micky and Ronald escorting the napalmed Vietnamese child). He has also placed his own paintings within museum walls, next to historic works, to question the values of our art market, and the curatorial decisions that help so few while limiting so many. Regardless of how lovely and sweet his work is, it is always mischievous. It is in this context that Exit through the Gift Shop makes most sense.
Thierry, either despite or because of his unfettered exuberance, does indeed become a punch-line in the film. Perhaps his joie-de-vivre doesn’t deserve such scrutiny, but the trade-off is a legitimate one. It is important, thinks Banksy, that we critique the world in which we live, that we do not blindly accept the land of Disney as a place of family values, or the worth of the Queen’s image, or the security that an armed guard provides. Thierry’s ascension from fanboy to videographer to art star is one that critiques the art world’s machinations, and the manufacturing of cool. By recycling the tropes that Banksy and Shepard Fairey have themselves co-opted from the likes of Warhol, MBW does nothing to contribute to the rich dialogue within art, which itself is based more on their function socially than their aesthetics. Without the roots of graffiti and its issues of representation, without the years of practicing such craft in fear and danger of the law, MBWs work is soulless. That it looks cool and is successfully publicized points to the soulless nature of the hip LA crowd that flocked to his debut show.
I met Thierry Geutta when his New York show ICONS opened in the Meatpacking District in the Spring of 2010, just after the film’s release. He is a convivial guy, and behaves just as he does in the film. He talks excitedly, and wants to know more about whatever is being discussed, and wants to say even more than that. I spoke to him for about 15 minutes, and I was a total stranger. I can attest that he really is a sweet guy, and that his portrayal in Exit was no act. He is not Banksy. He does not offer any further insight into the film, but it is my affirmation that his story is real. How else would he have created Madonna’s album art? That being said, a painting of a hole on the wall of the West Bank is real too, but that doesn’t mean that you can walk through it.
