Saw Banksy's movie last night, a really good film! I'm surprised at how many locations are showing it.
The film is a good overview of the history of 'street-art' as it is differentiated from 'graffiti' and centers around a obsessive compulsive videographer.
There are a lot of conspiracy theories surrounding it... either way, it's a very sharp critique of value in art.
Amazing. I'm not sure WHAT I think about it all right now! I need to sleep on it and let it mull for a few days. But highly recommend everyone to see it.
Banksy is very talented, both conceptually and materially. But that's not really what the film is about, is it?
no. banksy will turn anything on anyone. interesting how mr. brainwash became the victim of his own good. great flick. very talented individuals. its nice to see how normal they are to do such provocative work, and i only say this bc the high class thinks of them as terrorists in some degree. as long as it stays beautiful and meaningful, im cool with it.
I went to the ICONS show around this time last year. We were wandering around the meatpacking district/chelsea and saw an open gallery. No signs, nothing to tell us what it was.
It was total crap. Upstairs/downstairs of one-liners.* We actually thought it was a student exhibition. The most interesting thing was a NY taxi in a large toys-r-us box but only because of the Goncalves show at the MOMA.
And apparently it was a scam - the movie, the exhibition, all of it.
*I'm not an art-snob who later reads about the fraud and then 180's their opinions on what they thought was an awesome show - it really was rubbish. Just like the first show at the New Museum
'Bomb It' is another great movie that looks at the street art movement, this one with a much more broad scope... it's available on Netflix instant watch.
mdler, i don´t agree. perhaps all contemporary "commercial" art is bullshit, as is just about anything uniquely creative once it´s tagged with a financial value. still a lot of surprising work out there accessible through the web, perhaps no longer qualifies as contemporary art, more investigation-oriented but there´s still a lot of good stuff happening i have to believe.
job job, made my first visit to the new museum a couple of weeks ago. worst "art" i´ve seen in a long long time and was very let down by the building. great from the outside, pretty devoid of spirit on the interior. nice furniture in the cafe, not much more for me
Wasn’t this all just a faux documentary put together by Banksy and Fairey as a knock on the commercialization of “street art”. Mr. brainwash, along with this documentary, is an art piece in and of itself.
Loved the film though, so good.
“Mr. Brainwash is a force of nature, he's a phenomenon. And I don't mean that in a good way.”
I still don't know what to think of Mr. Brainwash, but the movie was brilliant, exactly because it is leaving all of us with questions.
As to the notion of art being bullshit/dead: when I look at news clips from the Grammys last night, I feel confident that music is dead. I'm sorry, but a diva du jour "tribute" to Aretha Franklin is good for nobody but publicists and managers and anyone else getting a cut of the "talent".
Yet any one of us on this thread could name someone we respect for making awesome music separate from the entrenched popular music institutions. Music isn't dead, and it's not all bullshit, but large institutions have a hard time dealing with anything that isn't about making money - as nyc-bcn said, creativity tends to get spread thin once the financial incentives really come into play.
Lots of good art is still being made, as is good music. You just can't always look to a museum or award show to expose you to it.
wouldn't say art is dead. it's just that art used to be a luxury of sorts and now we are all so ridiculously wealthy that we have no perspective.
hell even the art is dead crowd sound like they have no conviction. like someone recorded the words into a synthesizer and lady gaga is playing them back to us with a backbeat
Yeah I agree iheartbooks - the faux documentary was good film-making, with really funny quotes: "I used to tell anyone to make art... I don't do that so much anymore..."
For me the movie exposed the strength and weakness of street art - uninformed social commentary, immediacy of narrative, strength of repetition. Constables kissing, or atm's strangling children don't carry depth beyond the first reading - that our society totally sucks, man! All illuminated in graphics of a vague and unanswered angst.
Graffiti has been around as long as walls and an opinionated moron with a drawing tool have been around. Was it the internet and immediate sharing that launched this 'street art' into the phenomenon it was? Not a bad start, but not that great, either.
I don't know what happened in LA, but one award show doesn't kill music. "Tell Bill i said have a coke and a smile and shut the fuck up"
The thing is, Banksy's kissing constables or rats with guns or whatever are really well delineated - he has actual drawing talent. MBW printing Warhol's Marilyn makeup onto other public personas has none of the, yes, artistic skill that Banksy has.
I hate to sound so old school but even a mediocre idea beautifully rendered with skill does still have resonance. A good idea rendered well is even more powerful. Quality shows, in drawing, via balance, shadow, volume (making a stencil have volume is a skill!), attenuation, stance etc. In street art, placement starts to be really meaningful on top of drafting skill.
not sure about any of that donna. banksy is a reasonable draftsman but more than that is just smart.
smart-aleck maybe. that is his draw. his drawing is not.
i like banksy for the same reason i like that michelangelo put himself into the last judgement as the flayed skin of a saint. it's cute. weird. and it's still there. a joke for the ages.
or for banksy at least for a week or two.
@ mdler, all artists make things to be sold (one way or the other). the only variable is the preferred currency...no?
when i was an undergrad at indianastan university back in the mid80's there was a graffiti artist named TomCatSpray who did these great little stencil pieces that were found in the alleys behind the local cool places. there was an article about graffiti art about the same time i went into this local barber shop filled with retired townies to get my 2 dollar haircut. well when i was in the chair the whole topic about is it art or not came up with these geezers. next to the barber shop the city had built a fence around some vacant lot...the discussion was something like...
geezer1: i betcha it won't be a day before that fence is got graffiti on it.
geezer2: yeah and now its supposed to be art.
geezer1: my grandkid can draw better than that.
me: well, gee, mister i think its swell.
barber: well, if i had my way if i caught one of those "graffiti artists" vandalizing that fence, i would find the teeny tiniest artist paint brush and i'd make em paint the entire fence white just like in tom sawyer.
lots of his original stuff here near the my office
just across the road
this one below is good for the location as the marksman sighted on a single storey roof, pointing at the Bristol Royal Infirmary (Hospital main entrance - childrens ward)
i was so excited to see how banksy would crash the oscars in some unthinkable way. i never saw inside job...who here thinks it deserves the award over exit?
That would be totally awesome if Thiery is an entirely fabricated character... He did put on real shows... And the Madonna album cover is credited to him as well...
Great movie! Mr Brainwash is hilarious...
Apr 3, 11 12:16 pm ·
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Exit Through the Gift Shop
Saw Banksy's movie last night, a really good film! I'm surprised at how many locations are showing it.
The film is a good overview of the history of 'street-art' as it is differentiated from 'graffiti' and centers around a obsessive compulsive videographer.
There are a lot of conspiracy theories surrounding it... either way, it's a very sharp critique of value in art.
was dying to see this film in berlin in february. wasn't showing at times we could make. such disappointment.
however now it's in cleveland so i'm in luck. thanks for the reminder!
Yes, late to the party, but I just watched it.
Amazing. I'm not sure WHAT I think about it all right now! I need to sleep on it and let it mull for a few days. But highly recommend everyone to see it.
Banksy is very talented, both conceptually and materially. But that's not really what the film is about, is it?
Wow. Just wow.
no. banksy will turn anything on anyone. interesting how mr. brainwash became the victim of his own good. great flick. very talented individuals. its nice to see how normal they are to do such provocative work, and i only say this bc the high class thinks of them as terrorists in some degree. as long as it stays beautiful and meaningful, im cool with it.
I went to the ICONS show around this time last year. We were wandering around the meatpacking district/chelsea and saw an open gallery. No signs, nothing to tell us what it was.
It was total crap. Upstairs/downstairs of one-liners.* We actually thought it was a student exhibition. The most interesting thing was a NY taxi in a large toys-r-us box but only because of the Goncalves show at the MOMA.
And apparently it was a scam - the movie, the exhibition, all of it.
*I'm not an art-snob who later reads about the fraud and then 180's their opinions on what they thought was an awesome show - it really was rubbish. Just like the first show at the New Museum
all contemporary art is bullshit. That is all that this movie is about
No, that is one particular reading you've chosen to valorize
but yes @mdler is correct. art is in fact dead imo.
'Bomb It' is another great movie that looks at the street art movement, this one with a much more broad scope... it's available on Netflix instant watch.
we illegally downloaded 'exit'. it's what banksy would have wanted.
@Michael: nice, i'll check that out.
^ haha im right there with you
hilarious movie.
mdler, i don´t agree. perhaps all contemporary "commercial" art is bullshit, as is just about anything uniquely creative once it´s tagged with a financial value. still a lot of surprising work out there accessible through the web, perhaps no longer qualifies as contemporary art, more investigation-oriented but there´s still a lot of good stuff happening i have to believe.
job job, made my first visit to the new museum a couple of weeks ago. worst "art" i´ve seen in a long long time and was very let down by the building. great from the outside, pretty devoid of spirit on the interior. nice furniture in the cafe, not much more for me
nyc-bcn, I don't think the building is stellar, but I was speaking about the 'UnMonumental' exhibition in 2007
spacefraud, you're a lime-green duende 'imo'. So, who's right? Me, or the oompaloompa verde?
I'm kidding; I know you're not green, nor a magical goblin. That would be crazy.
I'm totally buying into the conspiracy theory....
Wasn’t this all just a faux documentary put together by Banksy and Fairey as a knock on the commercialization of “street art”. Mr. brainwash, along with this documentary, is an art piece in and of itself.
Loved the film though, so good.
“Mr. Brainwash is a force of nature, he's a phenomenon. And I don't mean that in a good way.”
I still don't know what to think of Mr. Brainwash, but the movie was brilliant, exactly because it is leaving all of us with questions.
As to the notion of art being bullshit/dead: when I look at news clips from the Grammys last night, I feel confident that music is dead. I'm sorry, but a diva du jour "tribute" to Aretha Franklin is good for nobody but publicists and managers and anyone else getting a cut of the "talent".
Yet any one of us on this thread could name someone we respect for making awesome music separate from the entrenched popular music institutions. Music isn't dead, and it's not all bullshit, but large institutions have a hard time dealing with anything that isn't about making money - as nyc-bcn said, creativity tends to get spread thin once the financial incentives really come into play.
Lots of good art is still being made, as is good music. You just can't always look to a museum or award show to expose you to it.
banksy is great.
i hope its alla hoax. that would be amazing.
wouldn't say art is dead. it's just that art used to be a luxury of sorts and now we are all so ridiculously wealthy that we have no perspective.
hell even the art is dead crowd sound like they have no conviction. like someone recorded the words into a synthesizer and lady gaga is playing them back to us with a backbeat
;-)
"And I don't mean that in a good way"
Yeah I agree iheartbooks - the faux documentary was good film-making, with really funny quotes: "I used to tell anyone to make art... I don't do that so much anymore..."
For me the movie exposed the strength and weakness of street art - uninformed social commentary, immediacy of narrative, strength of repetition. Constables kissing, or atm's strangling children don't carry depth beyond the first reading - that our society totally sucks, man! All illuminated in graphics of a vague and unanswered angst.
Graffiti has been around as long as walls and an opinionated moron with a drawing tool have been around. Was it the internet and immediate sharing that launched this 'street art' into the phenomenon it was? Not a bad start, but not that great, either.
I don't know what happened in LA, but one award show doesn't kill music. "Tell Bill i said have a coke and a smile and shut the fuck up"
woah that last quote is really harsh - not directed to anyone here but Bill Cosby
The thing is, Banksy's kissing constables or rats with guns or whatever are really well delineated - he has actual drawing talent. MBW printing Warhol's Marilyn makeup onto other public personas has none of the, yes, artistic skill that Banksy has.
I hate to sound so old school but even a mediocre idea beautifully rendered with skill does still have resonance. A good idea rendered well is even more powerful. Quality shows, in drawing, via balance, shadow, volume (making a stencil have volume is a skill!), attenuation, stance etc. In street art, placement starts to be really meaningful on top of drafting skill.
if art is made just to be sold is it art?
Michelangelo made many many things just to be sold. Are they not art?
not sure about any of that donna. banksy is a reasonable draftsman but more than that is just smart.
smart-aleck maybe. that is his draw. his drawing is not.
i like banksy for the same reason i like that michelangelo put himself into the last judgement as the flayed skin of a saint. it's cute. weird. and it's still there. a joke for the ages.
or for banksy at least for a week or two.
@ mdler, all artists make things to be sold (one way or the other). the only variable is the preferred currency...no?
when i was an undergrad at indianastan university back in the mid80's there was a graffiti artist named TomCatSpray who did these great little stencil pieces that were found in the alleys behind the local cool places. there was an article about graffiti art about the same time i went into this local barber shop filled with retired townies to get my 2 dollar haircut. well when i was in the chair the whole topic about is it art or not came up with these geezers. next to the barber shop the city had built a fence around some vacant lot...the discussion was something like...
geezer1: i betcha it won't be a day before that fence is got graffiti on it.
geezer2: yeah and now its supposed to be art.
geezer1: my grandkid can draw better than that.
me: well, gee, mister i think its swell.
barber: well, if i had my way if i caught one of those "graffiti artists" vandalizing that fence, i would find the teeny tiniest artist paint brush and i'd make em paint the entire fence white just like in tom sawyer.
hi vado
hi banksy. er i mean mdler. shit i just outed you.
lots of his original stuff here near the my office
just across the road
this one below is good for the location as the marksman sighted on a single storey roof, pointing at the Bristol Royal Infirmary (Hospital main entrance - childrens ward)
Bristol loves a bit of street art
lost out for the Oscar to Inside Job
so disappointed.
i was so excited to see how banksy would crash the oscars in some unthinkable way. i never saw inside job...who here thinks it deserves the award over exit?
hi tumbles
That would be totally awesome if Thiery is an entirely fabricated character... He did put on real shows... And the Madonna album cover is credited to him as well...
Great movie! Mr Brainwash is hilarious...
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