Exit Through the Gift Shop

I'm old and stodgy enough that my first reaction to "street art" is to think of them all as vandals. Therefore my guard was up as I began watching Exit Through the Gift Shop, which has at its core the wacky world of street artists, who operate outside the law, leaving their mark on walls, billboards, and trains (one fellow simply squirts a hose of paint on a freight train as it passes by). But by the time I finished the film, I was completely enchanted, as some of these artists are quite clever.

The film is by one of them, who calls himself Banksy, real identity unknown. The film isn't really about him, though. It's mostly to do with Thierry Guetta, a French emigre living in Los Angeles, who turns out to be an endlessly fascinating oddball. For one thing, he has an obsession with videotaping every facet of his life. Secondly, he becomes enamored of street artists, and films then in action, with the supposed goal of making a documentary about them. But it turns out Guetta is not a filmmaker. Instead, he turns to trying street art himself, and much to Banksy's amusement and horror, becomes successful.

This film is very hard to describe, but a lot of fun. The first half or so document Guetta's shadowing of street artists, who are kind of like punks of the art world, often bearing comic-book names like Invader and Zeus. One whom I'm heard of, Shepard Fairey (who created the iconic Obama "Hope" poster) becomes Guetta's subject. But he really wants to meet Banksy, a British street artist who is hard to get a hold of. They finally do meet, and Banksy, who had resisted all attempts to film him, becomes enamored of Thierry. But he does have his reservations, wondering whether he is simply mentally ill.

It is Banksy that gives Exit Through the Gift Shop it's endearing quality. He has the ear of a stand-up comic, wryly taking the whole thing not too seriously. He has a show in L.A. that is attended by the high and mighty, and includes a painted elephant, and when it was mentioned how much he sold some of his art for I understood how he could employ a whole team to conduct his guerrilla art. He also pulls off a stunt I found daring and pointed--he leaves a dummy, dressed like a Guantanamo detainee, tied to a fence by a ride at Disneyland. Guetta films it, of course, and the result is chilling.

When Guetta shows his film to Banksy, made from thousands of hours of videotape, it turns out to be a complete mess, so Banksy decides to make his own film, and to keep Guetta busy he suggests he try his hand at street art. Guetta trades one obsession for another, and ends up renting an abandoned television studio to mount his own show, which is promoted by the alternative press and gets a huge turnout.

Here's where things get even stranger--I actually liked Guetta's art. It's very derivative of Warhol, with silk screens of celebrities in blond wigs, and often juxtaposing modern images with old ones, such as the Mona Lisa wearing an eyepatch, or Queen Victoria in Batman's cowl. But the work had a wit that I found engaging, and if I were an art collector I might have bought a piece of his.

But the other artists seem miffed that Guetta was able to just decide to become an artist and be successful, despite his personality quirks. Banksy mentions that he used to encourage everyone to be an artist, but he said he won't do that anymore. He also says, in regard to summarizing the whole experience, "Maybe it means that art is a joke." It certainly will reinforce views of some that modern art is a crock, but on the other hand, those of us who like modern art will find the whole thing thrilling.