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A movie about - and made by - the controversial artist Banksy, “Exit Through The Gift Shop” is a film within a film that chronicles the guerrilla art scene that eventually shifts to poke fun at the sly satire of celebrity, consumerism, the art scene, and film making itself.
“Gift Shop” moves from the focus of Banksy himself, and speculates the idea of art appraisal and how we see art in itself. Is it some subjective aesthetic test or economic valuation that we come to these conclusions, or do artists need to earn their names, or is artistry simply imposed upon them through some random algorithm?
“Maybe [the filmmaker is] just someone with mental problems who happened to have a camera,” Banksy says about his friend and accomplice Guetta. “Maybe it means art is a bit of a joke”.
1917 - Marcel Duchamp poised ‘Fountain’ in a gallery. It was a urinal set to shock audiences into thinking for themselves.
1931 - Salvador Dali paints Hallucination Partielle: six appatitions de Lénine sur un piano. He sought not only to challenge the viewers taste, but also to disturb.
1963 - Andy Warhol produces the Eight Elvises. He has breached the boundaries between high and low art, placing the products of popular culture and consumer society in the revered space of the gallery. Eight Elvises is sold for $100 million.
2006 - “Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can’t even finish my second apple pie.” Underground Bristol Graffiti artist Banksy dresses an inflatable doll in Guantanamo Bay detainee camp prisoner and places it within the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at the Disneyland theme park, California.
A friend of mine has started a thread at our forum if you’d like to discover more. We’re covering topics that range from what your most favorite controversial piece of art is, to the importance of controversy as well as censorship. Come join in on the discussion!
“My moleskine work is a kind of a visual diary; some stuff is private symbols, some things I don’t understand till after I draw them and then ‘oh, that’s how that fits together.’”
-Kipling West on Tales From The Moleskine
“The main lesson for artists is that they should be adventurous, because even if they fail, they may still end up with something that people will respond to and gain recognition for their efforts.”
MOBA - or the Museum of Bad Art - prides itself on bad art and does so with dignity. Of all the work they receive only about 10% is accepted. Artwork is constantly being rejected in the categories of factory art, tourist art, painted on velvet, art painted by children, and kitschy motifs (like dogs playing with cards). But beyond those disqualifications, if an artist submits his own work and is rejected, it’s usually because it’s “just to good for us”. It’s a no-lose proposition. If their artwork is accepted, they get to be in the museum. If not, they can tell their friends and family that they were too good for MOBA.
The above painting is Lucy in the Field with Flowers.
Some of these are gems. I want to know your favorites! Let me know, or discuss them over at our art forum.
As if 500 years of being nude isn’t controversy enough. David, the sculptured masterpiece by Michelangelo, is said to have stirring emotions that clash and trigger mental imbalances in overly sensitive and cultivated onlookers. “I’ve called it the David Syndrome. It causes mind-bending symptoms and affects mostly those travelling on their own or in couples,” says one psychologist.
The artistic intoxication is caused by a combination of several things, including the stress of the trip, an “overdose” of beautiful art and the degree of sensitivity of the person. It is one of the top tier masterpieces in the world, a universal art token, conceivably expected to cause a little bit of madness for unsuspecting spectators.
A thief in Paris planned to steal some paintings from the Louvre. After carefully planning, he got past security, stole the paintings and made it safely to his van. However, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas.
When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such an obvious error, he replied:
“Monsieur, I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh.”
(And you thought I lacked De Gaulle to post a story like this.)
A total of 12 paintings were stolen in a residential area in Los Angeles late last year, which included works by Hans Hoffman and Riego Rivera. There is a reward of $200,000 to anybody for information leading to the paintings’ return. Click for more art crimes.
“None know how often the hand of God is seen in a wilderness but them that rove it for a man’s life. “
Thomas Cole painted The Savage State as part of a series of paintings he titled The Course of Empire. It is the first in the aforementioned that depicts the amalgamation of societies from the feral man to the provincial man eventually evolving, through each painting, and representing, the rise and fall of an empire, leaving the 5th painting “Desolation”, its end result. Although imaginary, it is still said that what comes up, must come down. It happened to Rome, but will it happen to us?
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