Exit Through The Gift Shop

Or all of the above, and very funny! One of the producers of the film was at the screening I attended, and they are trying to market this film by word of month as an alternative to the traditional methods. Definitely a film worth seeing, even if there are a number of clues that the big gallery success at the center of the film (I won't say more so as to avoid a spoiler for those who plan to see the film) was fabricated by Dansky and Shepard Fairey. This is one of my favorite films of the year so far.
 
Loved it. Just watched it on iTunes. I too am interested in trying to sniff out the ruse...but it's a great great doc.
 
It's actually Banksy, not Danksy.

I saw it in LA a while back. I throughly enjoyed it. Banksy is my all time favorite artist. So I was happy to see something with him "in" it. It was a great documentary. Made you think, made you laugh, kept you entertained, and drew you into a world you might not know exists.
 
Incidentally, I would encourage everyone who liked this film to watch Orson Welles' "F for Fake" Deals with a lot of the same issues as I think the Banksy film does. It's a lot trippier, being a product fo its time, but I think you can see the same thread playing out.
 
I realize I'm late to the party, but I just saw this... and wow.
Absolutely brilliant. One of the best docs I've seen in a while.
 
so hard to say whether its real or not. living here in LA I've seen Mr Brainwash's street art around town for years. Was Banksy playing a long con and putting up these seemingly derivative works in the year leading up to the film's release? Maybe.
 
Zak Forsman said:
so hard to say whether its real or not.
Click to expand...

To me it begs the question... does it matter if it's real?
And more importantly - what does that even mean?

Meaning - the pieces are real (like you said)... the shows were real...
The fact that MBW was commissioned to create the cover for Madonna's greatest hits is just the icing on the cake.

If it's not 'real' then what does that leave us with?
Is MBW any less real than any other manufactured flavor of the week artist out there?
(ie. Bands, teen idols, etc)

In the end - I don't think it matters one way or the other if Banksy staged it or not.
Personally, I HOPE he did - because it's brilliant.

But I really hope we never know - one way or the other.
We don't have enough people out there playing with our perceptions like he did in this film.... we need more of that.
Keeps us on our toes, I think.

:)
 
I just watched this film and enjoyed it thoroughly. I took the film to be a comment on the commercialization of street art, and perhaps even art in general. Street art is anti-commercial not just in its potential subversiveness, but in the fact that it's not really legal, and it doesn't "last" the way a painting will. Street art can't be sold, but "Mr. Brainwash" finds a way to not only sell it, but completely sell it out. I think it's also a comment on the art world in general. People will buy any derivative crap, as long as it's hyped up to be cool, and art collectors will buy it if it has a buzz of coolness surrounding it. And it might even be a statement about Banksy himself, and people who like his work for the novelty of it, while completely missing the point.
 
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Finally watched this in a nyquil-induced haze last night, very entertaining and fascinating, as are all the theories about it.
 
As someone who edits, when they showed the footage of Thierry's endless sea of videotapes in boxes, it scared me. Then when he went on to say that most he didn't label, and sometimes marked a group of tapes with a year and nothing else... oh man I feel for the editors who had to sift through all of that (which was probably 98% garbage)
 
I really enjoyed this one….not going to attempt to come up with any theories. :huh:

If you enjoyed the opening credit montage and want to see a great documentary about the 80's graffiti/hip-hop movement in NYC, I recommend Style Wars.
 
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