The Contemporary Documentary: Exit Through the Gift Shop
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	Narrator: Exit Through the Gift Shop may be one of the most puzzling and entertaining examples of the contemporary documentary, largely, because it is unclear what is being documented, what is, in fact, authentic and who or what it might be mocking. The film begins as a kind of reflexive documentary. Banksy, the notorious street artist, sits in silhouette commenting on the genesis of the film. He
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	explains that while Exit Through the Gift Shop began as a story about him, it quickly morphed into a tale of a Frenchman living in Las Angeles, Thierry Guetta. From the start, Thierry is obsessed with videotaping everything and everyone around him. Thierry's preoccupation with documenting his world takes a sudden and important turn when he discovers street art. He becomes a kind of cinema verite filmmaker
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	capturing the secret and hidden world of street artists such as his cousin, Invader and L.A. artist, Shephard Fairey. Thierry follows these artists late at night with his video camera. His jerky hand-held shots, a signature of cinema verite, capture the daring and danger of transforming public spaces into personal canvases. When the opportunity to follow and
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	film Banksy arises, Thierry jumps at the chance. It is one of the many ironies and twists of this film that Banksy is renowned for creating his own version of a subversive documentary by transforming the streets of London into spaces that are both real and surreal. Banksy's work constantly twists and turns any notion of true or authentic reality, staples of traditional documentaries, in ways that make us
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	question those realities. After Thierry joins forces with Banksy, the line between art and self-parody begins to blur even more. Thierry documents Banksy's successful and almost farcically famous art exhibit in L.A. Featuring a painted elephant, it drew celebrities and large crowds and generated record profits. But Banksy's exhibitions seems more a spoof on the pretensions of art and art collectors then a
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	serious statement about art and authenticity. If Banksy can triumphantly walk the valleys and truth of public life, then why not Thierry? When Thierry shows Banksy his epic documentary, Life Remote Control, it becomes clear that Thierry has no idea how to make a movie. As a result, in a bizarre and dramatic change
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	of direction, Banksy now takes over the making of the film while Thierry decides to transform himself into a street artist. Rechristened as Mr. Brainwash, Thierry mounts his own extravagant art show in Las Angeles. And despite a broken foot and a total lack of focus and organization, Terry's show is a massive success. In the end, the mysterious Banksy can only wonder at and regret what he has created. Once the subject of
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	another man's documentary, Banksy has become the director of a documentary about that man, a strange amateur filmmaker who somehow became a celebrity street artist. If street art represents a way to intervene in day-to-day realities of the world, what does it mean when those interventions begin to look like a commercial scam? And if that art appears like a scam, is a documentary about it also mocking itself? Indeed, perhaps Exit
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	Through the Gift Shop is another Banksy joke about public art, reality and the convoluted and comic relationship.