Exit Through The GIft Shop

After watching Exit Through The Gift Shop, I truly began to realize how unbelievably popular street art had gotten throughout the years. I began to look at life a little bit differently when I walked outside once the film was finished. I started to pertain everything I learned to daily school life. For example, when I started applying for internships for the summer of 2011 in the city, I was answering questions with Exit Through The Gift Shop in mind. One question was asking for a breakthrough idea in advertising and I came up with a very creative and innovative idea. My idea was to promote anything that will eventually come out. For example, lets say a new sports company is coming out with their first clothing line. Lets say that their logo is $<J, which basically means that money is less than happiness. Months before the actual launch date, I would hire graffiti artists so place the logo all over the city so it builds some curiosity. Once enough talk is buzzed around the city then we move the logos to advertising billboards. Not on the center of billboards, just on the bottom right or left so they are barely noticing. As the launch date gets even closer then these logos are appearing and more frequently all over the city. Once the media gets involved, a huge billboard in Time Square is put up with the logo and that’s it. Then over night, the billboard is replaced with the clothing line with the logo on it. The point of this is to build curiosity about this symbol and when people find out its about a clothes line they are going to be interested in buying or at least checking it out. Ideas like these started to pop up in my head non-stop all because of Exit Through The Gift Shop. I began to think differently, more creative, more underground if you will.

The underground scene is extremely important. Historically speaking, music, art, and literature all came out of the underground movement. Without an underground scene, there is no illegitimacy in the world. Everything is unbelievably conforming and it takes the beauty out of life. A strong believer in this would obvious be Mister Brain Wash. The entire documentary consisted of Mister Brainwash running around the world with famous street artists as they did their life’s passion. Mister brainwash was so interested in this that he decided to take on this hobby and create art around heavily populated cities. At the end of the movie, Mister Brainwash decided to host an art show for all of his work in Los Angeles.

Before creating his own work, Mister Brainwash would film everything. Every time he went somewhere he would take his camera with him and simply film. To some it was a treat or a pleasure to be filmed but others would find it very distracting and rude. Banksy is a street artist who came from the United Kingdom and made famous portraits all over the world. For the first time ever, this famous street artist would let Mister Brainwash film his every move. At the end of the film, we learn that Banksy regrets this decision. It was very humorous how most of the people he filmed did not particularly like him, nor do they appreciate his art and editing skills. When comparing Mister Brainwash to every other street artists in the streets it seems like Mister Brainwash is the first one to sell out. Space Invader posted all of his street art because he had a reason and purpose and enjoyed doing it. Mister Brainwash just wanted people to recognize him as an artist and someone who can be famous to. Anyone can spray-paint, but it takes a true artist to create a masterpiece of the underground scene.

Bansky is a true artist because he only focuses on the art. The reason why he remains masked, if you will, is because it isn’t about the man behind the art. It’s about the art that is created. More importantly, he is probably wanted for defacing public property all over the world. It would probably be better off if his identity were kept a secret. Part of his art was for him to be incognito at all times.

If Mister Brainwash would not have been discovered it wasn’t for the Internet or any social networking site. He is too late in the street art game and his work is nowhere near as unique as it should be in order for Miser brainwash to be as famous as he is today. Bansky is famous because of the overall message he puts out. Sheppard Fairy is famous because of mass repetition of his Andre the Giant sticker and Obama’s Presidential campaign. The very popular red and blue face of the President is now seen everywhere because of this street artist. Space Invader is another great example of this. He only wants people to see the art he created, not who created it. In conclusion, this documentary truly opened up my eyes to the street art-working world. I will forever take this fame into consideration whenever I wish to be creative. I love the mysteriousness of this hobby.