The documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop paints the intriguing story of a French-born Los Angeles resident Thierry Guetta, a vintage clothing store owner turned into street art sensation. Thierry Guetta’s eccentric obsession with recording every moment transcends into a fascination with capturing the lives of street artists who covertly display their art in cities all over the world. The documentary illustrates Thierry’s sudden rise in prominence under the identity of “Mr. Brainwash” as it captures the evolution of street art throughout a decade and tackles the question of what is considered as art. Although Exit Through the Gift Shop’s authenticity and purpose is often questioned, the documentary itself offers an interesting perspective on the rising popularity of street art, the character development of Thierry Guetta, and the public’s interpretations of what modern art is.
Exit Through the Gift Shop does a wonderful job at establishing the cultural significance of street art. The first half of the documentary is largely centered on the evolution of street art culture and the meaning and passion behind the work. It repeatedly mentions that it “needs to be captured” as it is commonly removed; an act displayed several times throughout the film. The film does a good job at examining the motivations behind street art in order to tear down the impression that it is largely just vandalism.
Not only does Exit Through the Gift Shop focus on the development of a single pop culture but also the development of Thierry Guetta, the aspiring street artist himself. At the beginning of the documentary, Terry is represented as an odd yet successful vintage clothing shop owner. The second half of the film revolves around Thierry’s spiraling into an “artist” himself. Constantly on social media, he becomes concerned with fame and attempts to become the hottest commodity in L.A. He sells pieces with ridiculous price tags, which are dependent on the object’s size, and often in the tens of thousands of dollars. Despite his procrastination, he manages to pull off a critical success of an art exhibition that is attended by thousands of people. After the show, he appears arrogant, satisfied to have finally established his place among the legendary street artists he had been filming for the past decade. Meanwhile, Banksy and Shepard Fairey show a certain amount of disdain for the fruitlessness of his art, and seem uncertain as to what to make of the public sensationalism surrounding MBW. From shadowing numerous street artists, Thierry learned how to skip all the steps and make himself just as famous and expensive as them without doing any of the work. It is this same thought process that caused him to call himself “Mr. Brainwash”. In his words, he realized that all art was was brainwash – making people think there is significance to something through repetition.
Mr. Brainwash becomes the perfect juxtaposition for street artists like Shepard Fairey, who has spent years finding his style, and Banksy, who is very thoughtful with his projects.The fact that Thierry has no artistic training nor does he actually produce any of his own art, the fact that we see how he manipulated a demand for his product and that his prices are completely fabricated – the film begs the question of “What is art?” and “How is it valued?” To paraphrase Banksy, “Warhol repeated iconic images until they became meaningless, but there was still something iconic about them. Thierry really makes them meaningless.” While most artists spend their time developing their technique, finding their style, and thinking about the meaning of their works, Mr. Brainwash found his style quickly and utilizes repetition and gigantism without too much thought. Thierry makes millions of dollars – entirely from the works of others and in spite of himself Interviews taken during MBW’s debut exhibition show viewers praising the work as revolutionary, and assigning value to objects that clearly have none. This film highlights the relationship between the world of street art and the world of contemporary/pop art in its second act. Perhaps most interestingly, Exit Through the Gift Shop underscores the pretentiousness of the contemporary art scene. As the end nears, it really seems that the documentary is challenging public perceptions of art and the “art scene.”
With a note of irony that only street artists can provide, this film raises questions regarding issues such as the monetary valuation of artwork, the commercialization of street art, and the appropriation of images. Exit Through the Gift Shop never lets the audience know how much is fabricated. At first glance, I would believe that this is a satirical documentary, or what critics have penned as a “mockumentary”. Thierry is such an outrageous character and yet the extraordinary amount of footage shown in the film of artists like Space Invader and Shepard Fairey applying their craft had to come from somewhere. Banksy allows Thierry to film him in his artistic process, only allowing him to be filmed from angles that make his face unrecognizable. His voice in the entirety of the video is altered for his privacy. Watching the film was bittersweet, given the contrasting depictions of truly imaginative and skilled artists–creating works that inspire and challenge us–alongside Thierry, who seems to ride in on their coattails, seemingly lacks the authenticity of the others, and yet is still handsomely rewarded for his labors. In a sense, one could say that Thierry represents the gift shop, which sells imitations of the artwork housed in a museum. he, like the gift shop, makes money on the coattails of the art that populates the galleries.
Most artists take years to develop their style, Thierry seemed to miss out on all those bits. However, it’s hard to say that what Thierry is creating and selling isn’t art. as a definition of what art is, it demystifies the notion of the artist: the artist is merely somebody who’s accepted as such by the artworld, not necessarily someone who’s imaginative or particularly skilled. It is in stark contrast to the beginning of the film, and underscores a completely different message entirely. What is art, and who defines what good art is? Guetta’s endless recycling of other artists’ ideas is just as legitimate. Guetta’s work provides a clear and coherent answer to the question ‘What is Art?‘ : Something is artistic if people recognise it as artistic. It does not need to be the product of skill, nor does it need to be an original idea or particularly insightful. The contrast between Thierry’s humorously awkward splattering of paint and Banksy’s politically-charged works is apparent.
Exit Through the Gift Shop successfully expresses the significance of street art and gives it a context that makes the film an excellent introduction to what is often naively dismissed as vandalism. The film captures the movement’s strong ties to pop art with its use of repetition and artifice to deconstruct corporate and pop culture imagery. Whether Exit Through the Gift Shop is a legitimate documentary, elaborate prank or something in between, it functions as a clever examination of the commercialisation of art – we’re just not too sure how much of this examination is satire and how much is an exposé. Exit Through the Gift Shop is an exhilarating and bewildering experience but like the transient art form that it is expressing, that’s sort of the point.