Review of Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) by Stuart B — 02 May 2011
The film starts off as a great documentary on street art, but then gradually becomes a story about a shop owner (Thierry Guetta) gradually presented himself as a film maker who was making a documentary on street art, and then ultimately as a street artist himself (Mr. Brainwash).
I feel the movie gets a bit mean spirited as Guetta starts to assert himself as Mr. Brainwash. Banksy and Shepard Fairey become pretty judgmental about their 'friend' (Guetta).
Certainly Guetta's artwork is derivative and often vacuous. That being said, earlier in the same film Fairey muses that his Andre the Giant image doesn't really mean anything, yet, the more the image appears, the more that people imbue it with meaning. Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black.
Receiving somewhat less attention is the fact that Guetta doesn't really make most of the artwork himself. Rather, he has hired a team of graphic designers, sculptures, and artists to execute his ideas for him. Thus, Guetta acts more like a director or producer, but ultimately takes all the credit, which to me is a much bigger problem than the derivative nature of his art work. This aspect is dealt with to some respect by showing how disgruntled those who work for Guetta are.
Sure his artwork is derivative, but most artwork is derivative (which is the nature of artistic inspiration). We don't see Banksy in this film acknowledging the influence of Marcel Duchamp, nor do we see Shepard Fairey cite the influence of Andy Warhol. Granted Guetta's work is much more derivative than that of Banksy or Fairey, but without any contextualization, the film seems to vilify (or at least make fun of Guetta), without acknowledging degrees of derivation.
Banksy makes a fairly mean spirited comment when he says that before meeting Guetta he used to encourage everyone to make art, but now he doesn't. It comes off as a hugely elitist statement, which is ironic for such a prominent figure in a 'democratic' art form like street art.
It just goes to show you, you can get the artist out of the gallery, but you can't get the snobbery out of the artist.
That being said, the visual elements of the film, and the narrative are good enough that I still highly recommend the film.
This review of Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) was written by Stuart B on 02 May 2011.
Exit Through the Gift Shop has generally received very positive reviews.
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