Exit Through The Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010)

If Exit Through the Gift Shop were merely an elaborate hoax carried out by Banksy to comment on the way hype has supplanted genuine artistic excitement in the world of upper-class art patrons it would be, well, funny enough, if not exactly profound. The idea that most people who buy art know almost nothing about art is something that has probably been around as long as art and commerce have co-existed. While many of the reasons seem obvious, I think it's much more interesting to think about why artists are so resentful of the very people who continue to make their world possible. Banksy can certainly say the money means nothing to him, but to me that's always been something only people who don't have to worry about money can say. I would guess he certainly appreciates the extra time he can devote to his work that comes from not having to bag groceries or sit in an office all day. Though, given that the words were directly from his (heavily modified, anonymous witness-esque) lips and were said in this movie, perhaps Banksy is doing what he often does -- saying something fatuous and cliche with a kind of self-aware irreverence.

What sets the movie above the status of entertaining, if not that interesting, prank is the closeness of Mister Brainwash's work to Banksy's own. If it is sorta-bad art created by Banksy for the purpose of this elaborate hoax (and I don't see how it can't be), it's interesting that he chose to make this bad art seem so much like the (good, in my opinion) work he puts out. It gives the movie a strange, and endearing, insecurity. Like Banksy is trying to come to terms with his own mild disbelief at the fame and notoriety he's achieved as an artist. The feeling that I'm sure strikes most successfully creative people from time to time -- that they really aren't as good or worth as much as everyone else seems to think they are. The personal doubt and worry of spinning your wheels creatively and no longer contributing to a larger discussion. I think viewing Mister Brainwash less as a broad lampoon of art's more self-aggrandizing impulses and more as an alter-ego built to, with a level of bemused detachment, investigate Banksy's own neuroses gives the piece a much more interesting level of poignance. Though, again, due to that detachment, it's entirely possible I'm just making this all up.