Artist Exit Through The Gift Shop

Exit Through The Gift Shop contains a lot of amazing footage of graffiti artists at work, and of their finished installations, most of which were removed or wiped away days later. Just as a permanent record of a remarkable artistic movement, Exit Through The Gift Shop is valuable. But there’s more going on here. In also telling the story of amateur videographer Thierry Guetta’s obsessive behavior, street-art legend Banksy delivers a surprisingly wry, analytical essay-film that starts out being about the DIY impulse, then becomes about what makes an artist great, and not a well-meaning wannabe. Exit features plenty of twists and turns—many involving the clandestine, lawbreaking art projects themselves—and it’s probably better if viewers don’t know the whole arc of the story going in.

Updated 07/27/2010