Creator’s Statement:
‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ is Banksy’s 2010 entry into documentary filmmaking, and yet another instance of him painting over someone else’s business because the work just had to be seen.[1] The feature is made from many hours of golden footage of the meteoric rise (and arguably the subsequent fall) of the street art movement. A movement wherein artists made colour from a “legal grey” as Banksy himself considers their area of operation. Banksy has us watch as these artists are confronted by police, then watch how confused they are when they are eventually confronted by auctioneers. And as street artists begin to play the role of police in their own art form as soon as those auctioneers are involved.
Banksy has always mixed social criticism with bone dry humour. As he describes in his first book, “graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don’t come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make someone smile while they’re having a piss.”[2] Exit Through the Gift Shop is his moving picture, enormously entertaining, with a clear attempt to this time critique the commodification of street art and the effect it has had on what art gets appreciated, and how.
This video essay seeks to establish important, somewhat complex context and explore why Banksy may have taken his own art in this direction, and how he chose to critique commodification. But this process is interrupted with the acknowledgement of popular speculation that the film was an elaborate hoax. Rarely does a film elicit this specific reaction, so Exit Through the Gift Shop is worth studying – what ought to be believed? And more easily answerable, how does this ambiguity operate in relation to the critique presented by the film?
This essay attempts to swiftly illustrate in clear audio-visual terms the lessons that can be taken from the documentary; that the ambiguous situation of the documentary, pointed in its critique, draws out a reconfiguration of art criticism – the means by which one assesses truth is not so different from that which assesses value. The unknowing regarding the film’s authenticity has a metatextual purpose. The viewer is placed in a very active position if the joke could well be on them. Only, film has been a game of deception between filmmaker and audience for a long time indeed. Despite its relative uniqueness. Banksy’s film is illuminated (becoming perhaps an essay film) in its (Schrödinger’s) placing in a historic catalogue of docufiction. These types of films “help to expand our understanding of what constitutes a documentary […] by forming a troubled relationship with the real.”[3] For me, they paradoxically draw attention to that which they could be defined as obfuscating – the boundaries of reality.
Additionally, the film is illuminated in its ambiguous situation in that it can inspire more than one distinct and detailed reading simultaneously. And to want to narrow the film to only produce one grounded reading of the facts would be like wanting to make the mystery box nothing more than the box – charmless and shallower.
A consequence of this illustration is being confronted with the awareness (reiterated by Orson Welles) that the map is not the territory and images are treacherous things.[4] That film is not reality and that really all films, all artworks, deceive on some level as constructions. A documentary filmmaker does not record, they interpret.[5] Perhaps a simple truth, but always a freeing, thought-provoking and creatively inspirational reminder.
- Tom Farrell
‘The Reality of Exit Through the Gift Shop’ Complete Reference List
- 24 Realities per Second, dir. Eva Testor, Nina Kusturica (Deckert, 2005)
- Apocalypse Now, dir. Francis Ford Coppola (United Artists, 1979)
- Banksy, Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall (Weapons of Mass Distraction, 2001)
- Banksy, Wall and Piece (Vintage, 2005)
- banksyfilm, ‘Shredding the Girl and Balloon – The Director’s half cut’, YouTube, 17 Oct 2018, <https://youtu.be/vxkwRNIZgdY> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Beardsley, Monroe, ‘Critical Evaluation: Reasons and Judgements’ in Aesthetics: problems in the philosophy of criticism (Hackett, 1981)
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- The Blair Witch Project, Adam Wingard, Ben Rock, Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez, Joe Berlinger (Summit Entertainment, 1999)
- Catsoulis, Jeanette, ‘On the Street, at the Corner of Art and Trash’, The New York Times, 16 April 2010, <https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/movies/16exit.html> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Children of Hiroshima, dir. Kaneto Shindo (1952)
- Citizen Kane, dir. Orson Welles (RKO Radio Pictures, 1941)
- City of God, dir. Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund (Globo Filmes, Miramax Films, 2002)
- Cleo from 5 to 7, dir. Agnès Varda (Athos Films, Ciné-Tamaris, 1962)
- Close-Up, dir. Abbas Kiarostami (Celluloid Dreams, 1990)
- The Creators, ‘Krokite’, Kronkite (Bad Magic, 2000)
- Docufictions: Essays on the Intersection of Documentary and Fictional Filmmaking, ed. by Gary D. Rhodes & John Parris Springer (McFarland, 2006)
- Donato, Raffaele, ‘Docufictions: An Interview with Martin Scorsese on Documentary Film’ in Film History, Vol. 19, No. 2, Film and Copyright (Indiana University Press, 2007)
- Ebert, Roger, ‘Is it a hoax if it’s also art?’, com, 28 April 2010, <https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/exit-through-the-gift-shop-2010> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Edelstein, David, ‘A Rich Satire About Street Art, Or Is It A Hoax?’, NPR, 16 April 2010, < https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126037446> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Elvis, dir. Steve Binder (NBC, 3 December 1968)
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- Felch, Jason, ‘Getting at the truth of ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’’, Los Angeles Times, 22 February 2011, <https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-xpm-2011-feb-22-la-et-oscar-exit-20110222-story.html> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- F for Fake, dir. Orson Welles (Planfilm, Speciality Films, 1973)
- ‘The Filmmakers’, com, Archived from the original on 27 September 2016, < https://web.archive.org/web/20160927140024/http://www.blairwitch.com/project/filmmakers.html> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Fischer, Russ, ‘The Secret Origin Of ‘Exit Through The Gift Shop:’ Extortion, A Lawsuit And A Dilettante?’, com, 7 September 2011, <https://www.slashfilm.com/517441/secret-origin-exit-gift-shop-documentary-extortion/> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Forrest Gump, dir. Robert Zemeckis (Paramount Pictures, 1994)
- ‘Frequently asked questions’, co.uk, Archived from the original on 3 January 2012, <https://web.archive.org/web/20120103163406/http://www.banksy.co.uk/QA/qaa.html> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Harakiri, dir. Akira Kurosawa (Shochiku, 1962)
- Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, dir. Chantal Akerman (Olympic Films, 1975)
- Landesman, Ohad, ‘Aesthetics of Ambiguity in Docufictions’ in Contemporary Documentary, ed. Daniel Marcus & Selmin Kara (Routledge, 2015)
- La Terra Trema, dir. Luchino Visconti (Compagnia Edizioni, Distribuzione, Internazionali Artistiche, 1948)
- Life Remote Control, Mr. Brainwash (2011)
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- Massive Attack, ‘Atlas Air’, Heligoland (Virgin Records, 2010)
- Massive Attack, ‘Psyche’, Heligoland (Virgin Records, 2010)
- Moana, dir. Frances H. Flaherty, Robert J. Flaherty, Monica Flaherty Frassetto (Paramount Pictures, 1926)
- North by Northwest, Alfred Hitchcock (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1959)
- On the Bowery, dir. Lionel Rogosin (Film Representations Inc., 1956)
- ppmc, ‘Sotheby’s Auction of Banksy’s Devolved Parliament. £8.5 million plus premium (9.8 mil all in!)’, YouTube, 3 October 2019, <https://youtu.be/sWFHwAAU1YA> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Pulp Fiction, dir. Quentin Tarantino (Miramax Films, 1994)
- Randy Writes a Novel, dir. Anthony Warrington (2018)
- The Red Shoes, dir. Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell (General Film Distributors, 1948)
- Ryzik, Melena, ‘Riddle? Yes. Enigma? Sure. Documentary?’, The New York Times, 13 April 2010, <https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/movies/14banksy.html> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Sardonicast, ‘61: F for Fake’, 1 June 2020 <https://sardonicast.fireside.fm/61> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Shelton, Jacob, ‘Is ‘Exit Through The Gift Shop’ An Actual Profile Of Mr. Brainwash, Or Is It A Practical Joke?’, com, 14 January 2020, <https://www.ranker.com/list/exit-through-gift-shop-documentary-or-prank/jacob-shelton> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Sidelnikova, Yevheniia, ‘“Exit through the gift shop”: the endless joke of Banksy the Trickster’, com, 14 June 2020, <https://arthive.com/publications/4429~Exit_through_the_gift_shop_the_endless_joke_of_banksy_the_trickster> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Sky News, ‘Mr Brainwash ‘honouring’ top artists by reproducing their work’, YouTube, 3 October 2021, <https://youtu.be/TEtM8j1VZcE> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Sontag, Susan, Against Interpretation (Penguin, 1966)
- Sotheby’s, ‘Bidding Battle Boosts Banksy to Four Times its Estimate’, YouTube, 8 October 2020, <https://youtu.be/F_kKHQ8CD1o> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, dir. F. W. Murnau (Paramount Pictures, 1931)
- They Live John Carpenter (Carolco Pictures, Universal Pictures, 1988)
- The Tonight Show, Season 7, Episode 203 (NBC, 6 August 1999)
- Waking Life, dir. Richard Linklater (Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2001)
- Walker, Alissa, ‘Here’s Why the Banksy Movie Is a Banksy Prank?’, Fast Company, 15 April 2010, < https://www.fastcompany.com/1616365/heres-why-banksy-movie-banksy-prank> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- WhitewallGalleries, ‘Introducing Mr Brainwash’, YouTube, 25 March 2021, < https://youtu.be/JtPT2faxSlg> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
- The Wild Bunch, ‘Creation’, The Wild Bunch (Ariwa, 1984)
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- Zahi Shaked, Israeli tour guide צחי שקד, מורה דרך, ‘Bethlehem and Bankasi – “Rage, Flower Thrower” or “FLower Bomber” by Banksy’, YouTube, 19 Feb 2018, <https://youtu.be/_aSLH9yNOd0> [Accessed 5 February 2023]
[1] Exit Through the Gift Shop, dir. by Banksy (Revolver Entertainment, 2010)
[2] Banksy, Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall (2001), p. 5
[3] Ohad Landesman, ‘Aesthetics of Ambiguity in Docufictions’ in Contemporary Documentary, ed. Daniel Marcus & Selmin Kara (2015), pp. 13
[4] René Magritte, The Treachery of Images (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1929)
[5] Raffaele Donato, ‘Docufictions: An Interview with Martin Scorsese on Documentary Film’ in Film History, Vol. 19, No. 2, Film and Copyright (Indiana University Press, 2007), pp. 199-207
The video may also be seen on vimeo here: