Thierry Guetta's Exit Through The Gift Shop

Exit Through the Gift Shop is critical of how our culture values and judges artwork because of the degree to which expectations and others’ beliefs manipulate our interpretations of reality. The documentary demonstrates this phenomenon concerning art, but it also applies to all subjective experiences. Through Thierry’s opening gallery Life is Beautiful, Exit Through the Gift Shop shows how expectations and conformity manipulate our experiences.

“Street art is omnipresent in urban streets and is a rish source of inspiration for artistic creativity. . . It possesses the aesthetic voices of the ordinary and enables resistance for the marginalized. Banksy’s street art, in particular, can guide students to think about various social and political issues and to reflect upon the immediate, if not unjust, world in which they live, to transform that world, and to

Thierry had come to the conclusion that street art doesn’t last long so all of it, including the art itself and the artist, needs to be documented before it disappears forever. Thierry was soon given the idea to create a street art documentary by Shepard Fairy. This is presumably why so many street artists let him film them, because they didn’t know that there was actually no documentary in the making and that this documentary was almost more like an excuse to film. But with all the artists that Thierry was filming, he knew that he was missing one thing and that thing was

Banksy is one of the most famous and mysterious street artists in the world. Helen Weaver, the art in an American magazine writer stated that,” Banksy was born in 1974 and was raised in the Bristol UK area. When he first started spray painting, he was ten years old.” “(1). Weaver Helen.” Banksy.” Art in America. Sep 18.2009. Web.11 Nov.2015. Banksy enjoyed the attention he received from the public. He loved using street art to express his inner feelings. He mostly uses graffiti to express his feelings. In the early years the authorities worked hard to remove his pictures from public places. They considered his art vandalism and destructive to the public. Vandalism is when someone deliberately destroys the public or private property, however, the public fought to save some of his pictures from authorities. Banksy is a very influential artist in his time. He was well respected and recognized by his fans all over the world.

Throughout the time that humans have created pieces of artwork, the interpretation of whether or not the general public considers it art changes. In the past, being an artist was highly respected such as in the times of the Renaissance where they were alongside philosophers and other of the kind, examples being Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo. Nowadays, the arts are often looked down upon and disregarded and do not receive the respect they deserve. One form of art that is typically looked at with disgust and lives a very short lifespan is street art. Street art is the main focus of Banksy’s documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, which focuses on two sub-themes which were the actual creation of street art and its history along with the uprising

There is always a misconception that mental illness is very dangerous to others who are not in their situation or not in normal stage. Let me remind you that every individual has the capacity to think to love and to be understood by others. But there are some instances that normal individual started to change and wasn’t find solution that affects their behavior.

All of the articles that are discussed throughout this essay stated very similar observations when it came to the demographics of the prison population. They stated that the people who are mostly incarcerated are people of color, predominantly African-American and then Hispanic men. Jennifer Wynn stated that when she visited Rikers Island and was waiting in the waiting room, she was the only white person there (Wynn, 2012). She later found that ninety percent of the inmates were black or Hispanic (Wynn, 2012) and that ninety three percent were male (Wynn, 2012). Although not as large as black men, there has also been an increase of minority women imprisonment. This racial disproportion was not always this way. During World War II, whites consisted of seventy percent of inmates and only thirty percent were identified as “others” (Martense, 2012). This has been reversed now being that seventy percent of the prison population are black and Hispanic and thirty percent being white (Martensen, 2012). According to Martensen, the reason for this is due to the ‘War on Drugs’ which indirectly targets racial minorities. When it was implemented, there was not a drug crisis, however, drug offenses has lead to a major increase in the federal inmate population and state prisoners between 1985 and 2000 (Martensen, 2012). Most of these people come from disadvantaged communities with a lack of opportunities which can lead to criminal behaviors. People who have more power are in the

The shaky and handheld footages documented by Guetta to showcase the street artists at work, his family and his misdemeanor tryst at Disneyland with Banksy, gave a sense of real life unfolding before the audiences’ eyes. After all, the audiences are easily convinced of what is real if the handheld camera movements are shaky because the event being captured is fast-moving (Chapman 2009, 21). Yet, it is interesting to note that during one of his film premiere interviews, Banksy had mentioned that rolls of these archived footages taken by Guetta were impossible to watch and that he and his small team of editors spent a year trawling through 10,000 hours of footages only to find mere seconds of usable footages (Leopold, 2010). If this was the case, then it poses questions on the realism of the footages that were put together in the film - were they real or mere reenactments to construct realism since the depiction of truth in documentary can be challenging; “it can tell a truth, but not the entire truth” (Chapman 2009,

With help of Thierry Guetta, a French boutique owner turned freelance videographer, the world of graffiti and its artists are exposed in Exit through the Gift Shop. Well-known artists such as Shephard Fairey, Invader, Borf, and many others are captured by Guetta’s camcorder. Guetta captures the art chronologically from beginning to end all while avoiding law enforcement. His efforts led to following around the extremely talented, Banksy.

Banksy or as said to be shortened for Robert Banks is the graffiti artist who will never be caught. His technique of stenciling makes it easier for him to get the job done fast and efficiently. Banksy states that being anonymous can be “crippling” and hard to do. In an anonymous email said to be from Banksy he states,

While his identity remains unknown, it is believed that he was born in Bristol, England in the mid-1970s. In the beginning of his career, he started doing graffiti in the early 90s and collaborated with other street artists. His artwork at the time consisted mostly of freehand, but starting in the late 90s, he predominantly used stencils as it was deemed more efficient. With this technique, his work became more well known around Bristol and London. In the late 2000’s, his work surfaced all over, even being on buildings in different parts of America, predominantly New York City. While some of his work seems to be humorous and satirical, they mostly relate to war and capitalism. His work often times are parodies of historical images, such as the piece being focused on in this analysis (“Banksy

In the film “Exit Through The Gift Shop” Thierry Guetta, a Los Angeles-based Frenchman decides he loves the idea of recording and starts recording everything he does, soon after this he falls in love with the idea of street art, first introduced to him by his cousin with the street name of Space Invader. Once Thierry ventures in the street art culture he comes across the anti authoritarian artist Banksy. Banksy lets Thierry film him paint street art but decides to turn the camera towards Thierry and gives him the advice to try street art himself. This makes for a great twist in the documentary, played out as a decision of the moment, however many audiences interpret the meaning of the film in different ways. Thierry's transition into a street artist demonstrates Banksy's attempt to mock the art world by documenting an un-experienced middle aged man transition from cameraman to seven figure street artist.

Banksy is the famous graffiti artist who live in England, name and identity is unknown. He has inspiration is “Blek Le Rat” who is the father of stencil graffiti. Almost his work is stencils style but he has another technique too example like 3D work or film. Banksy work is about satirical politic or society issues and his work appear in many country many wall and he like to use famous people to satirical in his work example some his work he use queen sit on another girl face. He like to use a rat in his work it like a charter of him.

Banksy is a very renowned street artist who keeps his identity unknown. His artwork is portrayed by “striking images, often combined with slogans, [which] engages political themes, satirically critiquing war, capitalism, hypocrisy and greed” (“Banksy Biography”). He first started his bold street art in Bristol, his hometown located in London, but quickly spread to the United States of America. In the U.S., Banksy targeted the most populated cities; this was due to the fact that it was easier for him to spread his messages. With a crowded location, his lessons will extent over an audience much quicker.

Jean-Michel Basquiat emerged from the punk scene in New York as a street-smart graffiti artist. He successfully crossed over his downtown origins to the international art gallery circuit. Basquiat’s work is one of the few examples of how an early 1980’s American graffiti-based could become a fully recognized artist. Despite his work’s unstudied appearance, Basquiat very skillfully and purposefully brought together in his art a host of disparate traditions, practices and styles to create a unique kind of visual collage. His work is an example of how American artists of the 1980’s could reintroduce the human figure in their work after the wide success of minimalism and conceptualism.