Banksy’s latest move
The underground artist’s film ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ is a hot ticket at Sundance. It’s part guerrilla art chronicle and part satire of celebrity, consumerism, the art world and filmmaking.
By John Horn and Chris Lee
The movie doesn’t appear anywhere in the Sundance Film Festival’s catalog. Outside a small circle of ultra-secretive confidantes, nobody knows its director’s identity or whereabouts. And the film’s place in the Sundance schedule wasn’t even announced until last week.
That didn’t prevent “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” a film from acclaimed British street artist Banksy, from becoming Park City’s hottest ticket on Sunday night. Outside the 446-seat Library Center Theatre, Banksy fans started queuing up hours before “Gift Shop’s” premiere, in 15-degree weather, even if their chances of getting in were somewhere between slim and none.
A film-within-a-film that begins as a chronicle of guerrilla art and its most prominent creators but morphs into a sly satire of celebrity, consumerism, the art world and filmmaking itself, “Exit Through the Gift Shop” is a work that’s nearly impossible to categorize. The movie that’s both about — and made by — the controversial and hugely popular artist grapples with a separate series of contradictions about the competing themes of fame and privacy.
“Trying to make a movie which truly conveys the raw thrill and expressive power of art is very difficult. So I haven’t bothered,” Banksy said in an e-mailed statement. “Instead, this is a simple everyday tale of life, longing and mindless vandalism.”