Critics are the new Builders

An important and relevant part of today's culture is the presence of "street art". Street art is usually just graffiti, but in some cases it is intertwined with a political message or criticism of society. Exit Through the Gift Shop is a street art documentary about how a rebellious tabooed form of art became extremely mainstream. The major change in the way people view street art shows the sudden change in society's opinion on critics, what once was the thing that society denounced is now a cherished part of it's culture. Critiquing society is the "cool" thing to do.

In the film  Exit Through the Gift Shop  a man named Thierry Guetta is shown following around some of the biggest names in street art and video taping them. He tells them that he is going to make a "street art documentary". The two biggest artists he spends time filming are Shepard Fairey (Obey) and the infamous Banksy. Thierry records the two climbing buildings, pasting enormous banners, and other not-so-legal activity. He follows them around for a number of years until he racks up thousands of hours of tape and has no documentary. Banksy finally tells him he must make the documentary. So Thierry attempts to and fails, Banksy saying it was "absolute ****". Banksy tells him maybe he should make his own art and he would take over the documentary. So Thierry takes his advice and comes up with the alias "Mr. Brainwash" (MBW) for short. MBW does a few sloppy paste ups and other generic types of street art, none particularly grabbing, and immediately decides to open a gallery. He finds the hugest studio possible and fills it up with meaningless art that was mostly copied from Banksy, but much bleaker. Never the less thousands of people came to his show and he made millions of dollars.

The fact that people mindlessly bought MBW's art shows that people who are supporters of street art are sort of mindless. The whole ordeal is incredibly hypocritical because street art is not supposed to be mainstream, it is supposed to be an underground art form that criticizes venues like the one MBW is holding. Art isn't supposed to be for the money, graffiti is the purest form of art because it is not done for critical acclaim, nor for money, and what MBW did went entirely against that notion. People buying this art shows a revolution, people are supposed to be slightly offended by this art, it is meant to make one question but instead people are opening their wallets... What once was meant to criticize modern day society was changed by one man into an art form that may soon shape society.

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_through_the_gift_shop
Youtube Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTlm6dU2xHk