Toronto Craft Alert

Exit Through the Gift Shop: A Banksy Film
Review by Kalpna Patel

“Imagine a city where graffiti wasn’t illegal, a city where everybody could draw whatever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall – it’s wet.”

– Banksy, Wall and Piece

Before its release two weeks ago, word of “the new Banksy movie” raised eyebrows among those familiar with the unknown yet prolific street artist who’s been stencilling rats, monkeys and cuddling-cops on walls around the world for the past ten years. Because how could a film about Banksy not reveal his identity? Turn the subject of the film into the film’s director, that’s how. Banksy appears in the film just as we’d imagine him at work – deftly and in darkness. Hiding behind his hoody and with his voice garbled, Banksy, in his signature subversive style, swings the camera around and points it at the man we thought was holding the camera, and proceeds to spraypaint a picture of the world of street art along with its inevitable drips and fumes: questions of authenticity, anonymity, marginality and commercialization.

The film begins with Thierry Guetta, a French ex-pat who runs a lucrative vintage clothing business in Los Angeles and is never without his video camera. His obsessive and indiscriminate recording of everyday life takes a momentous turn when he films his cousin creating and installing small pieces of mosaic-tiled artwork around Paris, revealing to us the identity of street artist Space Invader. Guetta’s adventures with Space Invader introduce him to a whole crew of street artists, including creator of the OBEY sticker phenomenon, Shephard Fairey. Upon meeting him, Guetta becomes Fairey’s unshakeable sidekick, accompanying and recording him as he navigates and decorates the city streets with his three-foot high Andre the Giant paste-ups. Guetta’s presence is obviously a nuisance to the artist – the lights of his camera calling attention to Fairey’s illegal activities – so Guetta is forced to justify his incessant videotaping. He decides he is making a street art documentary. Or at least that’s what he decides to tell his annoyed and suspicious subjects. Thus begins the search for Banksy, for what would a graffiti film be without him? Alas, Guetta is no filmmaker and the results of his footage of Fairey, Banksy and others amount to an unwatchable, seizure-inducing collage of street art imagery. Interested in salvaging the project, Banksy takes over, freeing up Guetta’s time to pursue his new passion – creating (rather than documenting) street art. Thus Mr. Brainwash (Guetta’s AKA) is born and Banksy goes from being the film’s subject to its director, making Exit Through the Gift Shop a documentary about Guetta’s foray into the surprisingly lucrative world of street art. The film poses all the big questions: What happens when art and commerce collide? Can graffiti ever be considered art? And what does it mean for that to happen (or not)?

Street art is simple and temporal by nature (it’s gotta go up fast, and it’s gonna come down fast), it’s marginal because it has to be (it’s still illegal, after all) and its artists are necessarily anonymous (lest they get caught). In art as in music, our ideas of artistic authenticity are often based on the belief that “real” art does not belong (or shouldn’t be created solely for) a commercial market; in that case, the authenticity of street art would never be compromised by commerce, since by nature it couldn’t exist in the commercial sphere. But despite the diligently maintained anonymity of street artists, and the fact that their work can never really be bought or owned by any one person, Exit Through the Gift Shop reveals the increasing commercialization of street art by documenting the overnight success of Mr. Brainwash. Guetta is portrayed as the ultimate sell-out as he prepares for a huge solo exhibition (promoted reluctantly by Fairey and Banksy) of Mr. Brainwash “originals” (mediocre work cranked out by hired artists, consisting mostly of paint-splattered, recycled Warhol imagery), which sell for millions. Moving from the margins directly into the commercial sphere, Guetta’s work no longer seems to capture the spirit of the craft. But to view him as the villain of the film is not entirely accurate. It is equally problematic to view the marginal and relatively underground world of Fairey, Banksy and others as immune to the commercial-driven forces at work in mainstream circles – afterall, Guetta’s exhibition was inspired by Banksy’s own held some years prior (attracting news crews and with film stars in attendance), and at one point we see his work auctioned off at Sotheby’s, so we know our boy Banksy is getting paid and that his work is owned by the same people who purchase Picassos and who hang Warhols in their washrooms. So while it’s easy to celebrate street art for it’s perceived authenticity and subversiveness, the film suggests that we shouldn’t let the street artists’ anonymity be confused with a self-imposed (or desired) marginality – he remains anonymous so he won’t get caught, not because he doesn’t want to make a living off his art.

As interesting and worthy of discussion as the art/commerce and graffiti/art debate is, the crafter in me is more inspired by the film’s depiction of the dissemination and actual practice of street art. Guetta’s footage of street artists at work makes up the bulk of the film and is what I find most intriguing. Because for crafters, it’s the process – the planning, making, assembling and executing – that excites us, and seeing the likes of Fairey and Banksy doing just this is truly remarkable. That it all has to be done quickly (many of Banksy’s pieces are up in less than fifteen minutes) and in the dead of night adds to the excitement. Watching Fairey spend an afternoon at Kinko’s, gigantic photocopies of his Giant strewn about the shop floor, is not only hilarious but conveys the beautiful simplicity and hustle of street art – he hasn’t employed anyone to do the grunt work for him, there isn’t any complicated technology or expensive materials and equipment involved; he’s just there, blowing up his images, crouching down on the floor and cutting them out by day, scaling walls and climbing up rooftops with a bucket of glue by night. Every night there’s the risk of getting caught, the risk of falling off the ladder, but it’s necessary to his art and he lives for it – all of this for something that will most likely be removed or painted over within hours of going up. It sounds romantic, and I’m not ashamed for being seduced by it.

Equally inspiring are the shots of the hooded Banksy with (it would seem) permanently ink-stained fingers, cutting out and assembling his cardboard rat stencils. It makes you want to race home and make something, anything, and put it on display for the world to see, or ignore. Being a self-taught crafter and having never had an arts education or training, I appreciate the democracy of street art – anyone can do it, there’s no formal instruction required, and there’s no jury to determine whether your work should be on display or not. As a viewer of street art, I appreciate the absence of some higher “art authority” that would otherwise curate the art in my life. That the work is delivered to me directly and without interference makes it that much more dynamic and engaging. The fact that it could (and most likely will) disappear at any moment makes me want to scour the city for hidden masterpieces – there’s nothing quite like those exciting moments of discovery. Sure, graffiti differs from the art we have to go to galleries to see in many ways. What I appreciate about the film is that it conveys one of these differences in terms of the dissemination and accessibility of graffiti – Banksy himself sums it up rather nicely: “Despite what they say graffiti is not the lowest form of art. Although you might have to creep about at night and lie to your mum it’s actually one of the more honest art forms available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on the best walls a town has to offer and nobody is put off by the price of admission.”

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Kalpna Patel (aka Ghostface Knittah) is the creator of Old Weston Handmade Wonders (an acorn-inspired line of jewellery and accessories), as well as the mind behind G-Uknit – a blog dedicated to her love of rap and craft. When she’s not busy making things, she can be found hard at work at Type Books in Toronto. Or reading in the park.