Street Art – Behind the Scenes

My son, who is very interested in street artists, recommended I watch the movie, “Exit through the Gift Shop”.  The movie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary and  I watched the movie this past rainy day weekend thinking it was going to simply be a documentary on this counter-culture underground movement called Street Art.  It was so much more … at the end of the movie you should ask yourself two questions, “What is Art?” and “Who decides it’s Art?”  There has been a lot of speculation as to whether or not the movie is “real” or not … I’m not sure it really matters, in the end.

Without telling you too much about the movie and giving away the good stuff, the movie was made by the most famously anonymous street artist, Banksy.

An amateur filmmaker, Frenchman Thierry Guetta aka “Mr. Brainwash”, shoots reels and reels of film on the pretext that he is making his own documentary about street artists and their nocturnal pasting and spraying.  There are many interesting focuses on different artists, most notably Banksy and Shepard Fairey (founder of Obey and the artist made famous by his iconic Obama image), who allow the filmmaker to go along on their adventures.

The drama intensifies and in the end … well, I think it has a wonderful twist.  I thought it was interesting how bitter the street artists were in the end.  Did “Mr. Brainwash” sell out?  Is he smarter than everyone else?  Is he a fraud?  Is “Mr. Brainwash” nothing more than a character made up by Banksy himself?

All in all, it is a very entertaining and interesting movie!  Let me know your thoughts!