I must admit I'm not the biggest Banksy fan now a days. I enjoyed his rat army years ago and thought it was funny and quite clever. But now it seems he's become kind of a one trick pony. Not to say he doesn't do the trick amazingly well, but why take it so seriously?
So I went to see Exit Through the Gift Shop last night to try and get what all the fuss is about. I was immediately struck by the fact that the only way to get a ticket was by creditcard and presenting your ticket and card at the door, so already you are bound by convention and slotted into a system. Once in I was amused by all the middle aged patrons in suits taking photographs of everything they could find to photograph. The installations were puns I had come across already, or seen other artists do many times before so as always struck me as pedestrian. Apart from the wiggling sausages in aquariums, I liked them when he first did them and think they're funny. But maybe not for the right reasons in this particular instance, they reminded my of perverted old men sitting in the back of darken theatres, nuff said? For a disused railway arch and pop up theatre the space was amazingly well lit, warm and middle class comfy, I was at least expecting and secretly hoping it would be a bit harder, colder, less inviting after all its a railway arch that's why I like going into them. I suppose health and safety got there first. Then there was the refreshments van, selling wine and tiny boxes of pop corn, I'm sure every box sold will be cherished by punters in years to come and every ticket stub will be carefully framed and may end up on eBay one day in the not too distant future. So this is what the film is about is it?
Into the theatre... I expected to be among the oldest in the audience (now I'm no teenager anymore) but to my surprise I was probably one of the youngest, not to say that people over a certain age can't enjoy art and film, but graffiti is supposed to be about youth and rebellion isn't it... No not really... it's about marketing, celebrity and sell out shows now. I'll not go into too much of what I though about the film itself as it's much of the same. I should have known that I was in the wrong place, when I had to cringe as two well dressed h&m ladies settled down in front of us with a bottle of white wine and two dainty wine glasses, next to the couple with their M&S picnic. Through out the film they all burst out in punctuations of laughter at "the correct places" As I struggled to stay awake - I failed to find it quite as funny, rather than the cynical and bitter. At the end a civilised round of applause... bottles and glasses were collected and patrons stumbled out of their seats to take more photographs and feel a part of the art or were we being forced to be the art, part of the joke? I did catch a faint whiff of weed as I exited, the one faint hint of "rebellion", maybe it was my imagination, or maybe I just longed for a nice relaxing joint after two long hours.
One positive is that as always the railway arches never fail to carry sound and make for an excellent space to carry something off, I like the bricks and sound of the train and vibrating as they go by. And I definitely felt that something was carried off along with my ticket money and two hours of my life I'll never get back. The joke was on us silly suckers for falling into the hype machine.
I'm off now to go and have a long shower and hopefully wash off this dirty feeling.
Robin Clare Art
