Exit Through the Gift Shop: Great documentary, sobering realization

One "Mr. Brainwash" (MBW) went from "an idiot with a camera" (as one interviewee put it) to selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of art in the single opening night of his first ever show. If that's not jumping on the bandwagon, Im not sure what is. And it's not his fault. Mr. Brainwash should be congratulated on realizing the things needed in order to sell work. Good advertising, good endorsements, and lot of weird and mysterious appeal. People came out of the show saying they had seen something historically significant, and they had. It just isn't becuase of the art.

The historical significance and the most telling part of the documentary is exposing the "real world" to how the "art world" works. Spend money, know people, and you will get noticed. Tell enough of the right people how great you are enough times and eventually someone will listen. Get enough interest based on anything, and if you present it well enough, it will be made meaningful. It was a harsh, but true message that even most of the "original" street-art stars seemed to realize. While their work is striking, new and exciting, it only takes one person to make it look pedestrian, and one new thing to make people forget it all together. Toward the end of the movie you saw many of the artists refrain from commenting on MBW, and my feeling is that they saw him as somewhat of a fraud, cheapening the work they do. While he was the friend they let into their world, let him film them, and trusted him like no one before had, they saw him take their art and turn it into a circus. He put on the most dazzling show he could think of, pumped out piece after piece and sent everything to the highest bidder.

There's nothing wrong with selling work, but i have to believe it irked these guys who have been doing this for years. An unproven artist picks up your trade overnight and becomes a sensation.

This was the first "great" documentary about street-art that I had seen (and I've seen a number of them), and the sad part is, it pointed out the brevity of its subject to the artists. It brought out the part of the art-world, that artists not directly associated with it hate. The fact that it's not always about the art. It's about the person, the hype, and the amount of cash one can get by exploiting the public. If we learned anything from this documentary, it's that the art-world is as ridiculous and obsessive about its fads as the general public is about its pop stars.

The stars somewhat concede at the end of the film, torn between supporting their friend and criticizing his exploitation of their form of expression. But the real blow to the artists was realizing that the art-world isn't as interested in the message (or any message for that matter) as they may have thought. That they are a commodity that, eventually, will be out of fashion.