Please Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010)

Coming soon to a theater near you...

This Bansky film premiered at Sundance in March. It may be awhile before it makes it to Buffalo so while visiting Manhattan I walked through the buzzy streets of East Houston to see it at the Sunshine Cinema.

I became interested in the elusive artist, Bansky, after hearing that an art object made by him was mentioned in Dennis Hopper's messy divorce that was in the news a couple months ago. The film explores the street art scene that actually began in the 1980s and later evolved into the image-based graphic style of the last ten-twenty years.

Through the lens of videographer, Thierry Guetta, we see an emerging scene that he observes and films while visiting France. His cousin, Space Invader, subversively installs lo-tech images of the video game character using small colored tiles in random public places. As he learns more about the scene, Guetta becomes curious to find out more about notorious counter-cultural prankster, Bansky. The British artist is known for graphic figures that appear in public places...such as an image of a police officer with a pink balloon dog or homeless man holding a sign that reads Keep Your Coins I WANT CHANGE.

In the United States, Shepard Fairey's experiment in phenomenology began appearing in the 1990s when he distributed stickers to the skater community with an image of 7'4", 500 pound wrestler, Andre the Giant. His OBEY giant logo is plastered on walls all over the world. He later created the HOPE poster of Barack Obama that was used as the 2008 campaign poster. The scene is not all male...Swoon's large-scale images of everyday people doing everyday things began appearing on walls in New York during this past decade.

While telling a story about the street art scene, Guetta interviews Bansky in the style of a 20/20 profile of someone in witness protection...with voice alteration and blurred face. We learn that Thierry Guetta is a frenchman living in L.A. with a family and clothing business. Through Bansky's participation in this film project, Guetta becomes inspired to take on the name Mr. Brainwash and begin making his own brand of street art. Much of this work features alterations of popular iconic cultural imagery, such as the one above, titled Jackson (Pollock). Success follows him as thousands attend his 2008 L.A. show, Life Is Beautiful, and Madonna commissions him to design the album cover for Celebration. Prior to the Sundance screening of this film, Mr. Brainwash had his first NYC show.

Anyone who has attended a large museum show lately knows that these events strategically exit everyone through an enticing gift shop display devoted entirely to items related that particular show. The art souvenir has become equivalent to the art experience. The film raises many questions. What is art? Can a commodity be art? Is the film entirely self-promotion? Is Mr. Brainwash simply another way for Bansky to express his own art? No matter what, the film is entertaining and provocative.