Exit Through The Gift Shop Essay

“In contrast to government-commissioned public art, street art is illicit and subversive in nature. Therefore, most street artists, including Banksy, use pseudonyms to avoid legal prosecution for vandalism.”(Chung 27) Banksy’s street art does not focus on competing with rival artists, but focuses on engaging with a broader audience in a deeper level. He provokes his audience by deeply expressing out various social practices that helps viewers to reflect and confront certain aspects together as a community. (27) The underlying message of Banksy’s art can lead towards an active involvement of street art within the community.

Known for his contempt for the government in labeling graffiti as vandalism, Banksy displays his art on public surfaces such as walls, even going as far as to build physical prop pieces. Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti directly himself; however, art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of

In “Graffiti as Career and Ideology”, Lachmann states that organizations “tried to win their members recognition as serious artists by encouraging writers to produce graffiti-style works on canvas and various other media with a view toward their sale to art collectors” (246). Rather than stopping graffiti writers, they are being encouraged to keep producing graffiti-style works to sell. While they aren’t vandalizing anymore and they are producing art on canvas, it is unexpected to further support these “criminals” like the organizations are doing. Some graffiti is even so respected and praised that it is protected. The perfect example of this is that “The stencil work and street art of British artist Banksy, possibly the most well-known contemporary graffiti writer/street artist, has gained such value as a commodity that the work on some of his walls is now protected under the aegis of urban heritage” (McAuliffe and Iveson 139). How can graffiti and its writers be so frowned upon but so many people still praise

Do you think the contribution of "Exit through the gift shop" movie, which releases in 2010 by Thierry Guetta helps to change people’s thought of street art? Furthermore, according to the film, Banksy and Thierry are face a dangerous situation, have a different identity and different experience and talent in street art.

The history of the Situationist movement is critical into understanding how street art can be used as a political weapon to enact social change. Like Banksy, the Situationists believed in superseding art, which abolishes the notion of art as a separate, specialized activity and transforms it into the cultural fabric of everyday life. Street art accompanies an element of surprise and culture shock because it can appear anywhere. People do not have to visit a museum or gallery to see art. Moreover, he adopts the Situationist’s methods of detournement, which is the act of taking an existing form of media and creating a new piece of art with a different message behind it. In particular, Banksy’s Les Misérables' mural is a representative form of deceptive detournement, which takes an intrinsically significant element and places it into a new context. Tear gas surrounds her and the French flag is torn to signify the values of liberty and freedom being destroyed. This is one of several Banksy’s murals that are reminiscent to the Syrian refugee

They went through so much we couldn’t even image how much pain they went through. Some went through famine, drought, disease and through family lose. If you can help this kids by giving just a shoeboxes of joy to get their mind off their lost that could help them so much. That is way the book by Franklin Graham is called “A Story of Simple Gift.” It tells about how much a difference it could make just by a shoebox. These kids wait all year to see if they are going to get a shoebox. I believe that America can help more than what we are doing now.

It satirically comments on consumerism and its relation to ‘art’, as the consumer is paying 79300 euros to physically create the object themselves. This is influenced by the the ‘do it yourself’ crafts style products as the consumer becomes the co-designer by recreating the

The detrimental effects of the predominance of experiences have flooded over into the production of the arts as well. In opposition to a time when artists’ voices were given a great amount of power in shaping the society and when art acquired a decisive political role, the deepening capitalist relations have replaced the role of artists to one that serves a group of people that is more and more exclusive, less and less diverse. Arts and culture on the Bowery now caters to the elites, a class that treats the area as an entertainment destination filled with a series of shopping adventures. In other words, artists and art on the Bowery are suppressed from addressing the politics of inequality and are instead expected to meet the needs of those who buy in the exchange of its survival. If they fail to do so, they are just as likely to be forced out of the area looking for another location to settle. The handful of galleries that managed to survive on the main stretch of the Bowery like Sperone Westwater, Soho Contemporary Art, and Westwood Gallery supports such claim. With a roster of established artists like Bruce Nauman, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, it is clear that there is no ground for local artists who do not fit within the mainstream market, whose subject

There is a lack of supporting evidence about graffiti information such as why people engage in vandalism and how it impacts on communities and so on. This article is useful for my research topic because this book’s focus is on street artists and legal street art. There was a lot of information about street

As Henry David Thoreau states: “the world is but a canvas to our imagination” is pragmatic in the sense of what is defined as art. The mere act of shaping art onto the simplicity of paper is condoned while walls, streets, and bridges become the norm. A rugged description, yet so valid in this case. This principle is exemplified in the works of Banksy. Banksy is my chosen artist. His works are authentic, yet aesthetically defined in the most unusual places. His method of art is likewise fascinating – for he uses bold sardonic street art and dissident witticisms combined with graffiti performed in idiosyncratic stenciling techniques to portray various messages. As findthemag.com states, Banksy uses “broad, complex abstractions and reducing them into something palatable.” I agree with this statement. Also, the term Banksy is a pseudonym for his unique identity that remains quite unconfirmed. This is enthralling - an artist who refrains from claiming his own art? This idea might sound confounding to some, but it adds fervor to my fondness of his art.

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,

Banksy is the unidentified mysterious artist that for the last twenty years has been vandalising walls across the world with imagery that is known for its ability to capture an audience with a profound and methodical phase or statement. Banksy’s work aims to confront society with the issue faced in today’s culture and challenges the viewer to justify their action. Banksy produces artwork that forces an audiences to think and question themselves and the world they live in. Although Banksy’s true identity is unknown, his artistic style is easily found in his artwork alongside his signature.

“I think a lot of people think of art as taking place in these discreet places like galleries and museums things like that and just getting it out of that is a way of redirecting your thoughts about the potential of art and what it can actually do and how it can function socially”, Curtis Jones.

As Banksy’s artwork spread throughout the world the prices of his paintings went up as well. A painting of a girl in an astronaut suite holding a yellow bird sold for $576,000. After this picture sold Banksy posted on his website a painting of an art auction with the words, “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit.” He calls the art world, “the biggest joke going ... a rest home for the over privileged, the pretentious, and the weak.” Banksy takes pride in telling people his opinion of their actions. His website post against people buying his paintings for a lot of money is a sign of just how much he dislikes the use of money in the world. I think this proves that the goal in creating his graffiti art is not to make a lot of money but to let his opinion be heard on all kinds of controversial topics. His strong opinions may also be because of his anonymous identity.

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.