Street Art

We watched a pretty interesting documentary this weekend called Exit Through the Gift Shop.  It told the story of this really eccentric- and self-absorbed- French shop keeper, Thierry Guetta, who walks around filming just about everything that happens to him throughout each and every day. He tapes his walk home from the bakery, his wife doing the dishes, himself in the tub. 

At some point he finds himself in the company of some of the most well known graffiti artists in Los Angeles. He begins following them out at night and filming them doing their work. There is one guy, Invader, who glues characters from the Space Invaders game-as well as others- onto walls, curbs, and signs across the city. Another guy, Shepard Fairly, specializes in pieces that feature the face of now deceased professional wrestler Andre the Giant with the word "Obey" written below. Seemingly unconcerned about his family, Guetta follows these artists everywhere - even overseas.

Guetta's dream, however, is to come in contact with the world's most famous and elusive graffiti artist, Banksy. Bansky is known across the globe for his pieces found on walls in post-hurricane New Orleans, the Jerusalem, London, Los Angeles, and many more. Guetta finally gets his chance to meet Bansky, a man who keeps his identity carefully under wraps. Guetta is even allowed to film hundreds of hours of Bansky at work, though from behind and with a hood pulled over his head.

Eventually someone asks Guetta what he's doing with all this film footage. He claims to be making a documentary but in fact he's throwing them all into random boxes in his house. None of the tapes are ever watched and few are even labeled in any way. Guetta sets out to go through his stacks of hundreds, if not thousands, of tapes and actually put together a film. The result of his efforts is terrible.

Bansky winds up taking the tapes and making the documentary himself. In the meantime Guetta tries his own hand at becoming an artist. Less than a year later he is putting on a big scale art show, sells more than a million dollars worth of this "work", and becomes a force within the Los Angeles art scene. The only problem is that he's not really that much of an artist. In fact, he hires artists to make his visions become realities. The bulk of the work at his first art show are the result of many hired hands. Guetta, now going by the name "Mr. Brainwash," seems to only sprinkle some paint over a few canvases and field interview requests. This heavily annoys all the artists he spent years following. Feeling as though Mr. Brainwash didn't have to pay his dues, or create his own work or ideas, there are many feelings of resentment. The silver lining, I guess, was that this film is the result of Banksy's work and is now nominated for an Academy Award.

It was an odd film. However, as you can see the street art was amazing.