I first heard about the Banksy film, Exit Through The Gift Shop through a blog around a month ago? Or maybe not that long ago, built up anticipation, as always with these movie trailers, but it never came out. Totally forgot about it, until someone told me it was out in was only showing in Dendy cinemas! (thanks for Dendy card lending! :) ) It was pretty funny, Banksy is some sorta genius really, and a small insight into the whole street art culture for the artists point of view. It explores the whole notion of "what is art": the artists that slap anything onto a canvas and call it art vs. the artists who have the whole artist's practice of thinking everything through and executing it to perfection. By mocking the main character, Thierry Guetta aka Mr Brainwash, who has zero art experience, and out of nowhere creates an exhibition in a year or so, that he wants to be loud and basically just to capture people's attention, which people buy into and buyers start requesting to purchase his work for thousands of dollars, even though, his work is clearly....a joke, Banksy says that maybe it is all a joke. If we didn't know all that went on with Thierry, and his background, that he's had no experience, and that he just rips stuff off other artists, would his art appear to be legit??
After returning said Dendy card, i was told that there are rumors that the person "Thierry Guetta" is actually non-existant, and Thierry Guetta is actually Banksy's fictional character, and even rumors that Thierry Guetta's character is played by Banksy! Anyways, this probably doesn't make much sense unless you've seen it, but it's definitely doing my head in. Basically, people believe Mr Brainwash and Banksy to be the same artist and are buying Brainwash's art just in case.
...buyers forking out $50,000 to $200,000 a canvas. “It doesn’t matter if he is good or bad,” one said. “He has the right connections, and that’s why I am buying...
to get you hyped....
