Essay On A Classy Exit

Art’s intention has always been that of transgression: transgression of boundaries, of techniques, of ideologies. The artists have always looked for ways to defy what is established. Street art is no different to other art forms in that sense. The problem with it is that part of its transgression lies in the fact that they are found in public spaces, most of the time without the consent of “the owner” of said space. And therefore it is most often taken as a way to vandalize and the artistic part seems to fall short in comparison. It often happens that the creator of a work of graffiti tends to remain anonymous unlike other works of art, where the artist takes pride in what has been created. It somehow adds to the idea that it is something to be ashamed of. In Thierry’s work we are able to perceive that same feeling of transgression. He is transgressing the boundary of people’s identities and need of personal space by recording them through their everyday life. When he happens to stumble upon his cousin’s group his motives change a little bit, while he is still filming because he is passionate about movies, he now has found a subject to explore: Street art, a kind of art where he can see himself reflected in this kind of art given that he identifies himself with that feeling of trespassing over someone else’s property. “I felt like I should capture everything in film because I felt like anything that I would capture in this moment would be the last time that I would see it the same. It was like a need to capture and make live forever those moments.” (Guetta 2010).
However, the way Banksy portrays graffiti art and other artists in his very own anonymous way adds to the theory that, unlike traditional art, graffiti is a kind of art that is not held in an ivory tower. Most of the time, art tend to be regarded as something that can only be enjoyed by the bourgeoisie, or those who have a certain economic freedom to the point where art has turned into an elitist form of entertainment. But by relocating art outside of the museums, it changes and stops being only for those who “can afford it”. It is brought closer to common people as it is more grounded and tends to find a common interest with their day-to-day issues, instead of attempting to be very intricate. As Banksy mentions “[] the thing is that most of all art is supposed to last many years, it is you know cast in bronze, or on canvas but street art has a short life-span so it needed documenting. We all needed someone who knew how to use a camera.” (Guetta 2010). So like this Guetta manages to be able to stay close with the artists and also we realize the need for these artists to assure their art pieces will be able to somehow last. While art’s principal and probably most important purpose is that of expressing a certain idea, it also has the secondary purpose of that of preserving by being representative of a specific moment in time. Given the short life-span of street art, it was not able to serve this purpose in any way. By artists allowing Thierry to film them they finally had the chance to make their art last.
Although this also becomes a contradiction to graffiti and the secrecy needed in order to create it. By letting themselves getting filmed, the artists were also exposing themselves to being discovered. There is an inherent danger in the creation of street art, due to the fact that artists would get arrested if ever discovered. By filming the artists risked getting caught more easily. The recordings made Thierry an accomplice of every piece, but they also make the audience part of the same “crime”. The audience is transformed into accomplices too. Banksy’s work goes even further, he attempts to provoke his audience not only by forcing them to look at his art, but also by placing his very own pictures inside museums. He decides to use his art to mock traditional art in every way possible. The crime is even bigger, making his own identity a mystery is what allows his art to be perpetuated.
At the time, Banksy’s work seemed to be everywhere and yet he continued to elude Thierry, who was having problems to construct his documentary, so Banksy becomes an obsession for Thierry. Banksy unconsciously gave direction to Thierry’s documentary. Like this, Thierry becomes able to explore the artists’ sensitivity, and not only the process with which street art was made. Thierry gave Banksy the possibility to remain anonymous while also allowing to assess the reaction the public was having to his pieces: “He always managed to capture some of the reaction of the people, and it became really interesting.” (Guetta 2010). They even describe themselves as “some kind of Robin Hoods.” (Guetta 2010). Art’s base is certainly to cause a reaction, something that does not provoke something in us, can definitely not be called art. While it is sure that street artists were aware of the fact that they were certainly making an impression on people, it was hard for them to correctly interpret this reaction. They would only know that there was a reaction due to the media attention, which would be negative most of the time since graffiti is considered a public offense. Thierry allowed Banksy to understand his public in a better way.
Given that graffiti is not held under such high standards as traditional art is, it has the chance to be more honest than traditional art since no one really expects anything from it. There are many kinds of graffiti and even when they might not appear as technically proficient as other pieces of art they still manage to conserve the soul of the whole graffiti movement. Traditional art, even the more edgy kind, is subject to so many rules and expectations that at the very end the ideas tend to be really filtered and very pre-digested by the time they reach their audience. It is mostly as if art has been gagged by the norms or prejudices we have against it, therefore disrupting its original purpose of saying that which we attempted to turn a blind eye on. The very fact of having to be exposed in a museum in order for the masses to classify it as “true art” is like tying the hands of the artist and expecting him to amaze us still. On the other hand, it is not like graffiti is not subject to criticism or prejudices, it is more that it relies on the fact that it is going to be satanized in order for it to become a little more relevant. Graffiti takes its bigger taboo as an art form to its advantage. By filming this process, Thierry Guetta allows us to become closer to street artists. He allows us to come to a middle point between the crime and the art. It is easier for us to relate to this kind of art that is prohibited while remaining personally close to our own understanding of life.
Thierry is in fact an artist, he may not have had a purpose in the beginning of his quest, but that does not make it any less ambitious or artistic. He becomes an artist by his need to fully disclose to us, the audience, a whole new world. We are able to become acquainted to a kind of art that is always attempting to catch our attention by transgressing our personal space, we are obliged to look at their art.

References

Exit through the gift shop. Dir. Thierry Guetta. United States and UK, Paranoid Pictures, 2010. Documental.
Stowers, George. Graffiti Art: An essay concerning the recognition of some forms of graffiti as art. United States, 1997.