Yesterday I saw the film Exit Through the Gift Shop by street artist Banksy. The film is almost a meta-documentary following the exploits of a man who documented a great deal of street art over the course of several years and then became a street artist himself in the process.
Through the film viewers are given a solid introduction to the world of street art, some of the major players, motifs, and ideas, before the film shifts gears. In the end it becomes a critique of the very notion and meaning of art itself. The absurdity of the commercial artworld, galleries, auction houses, and the like, are shown in stark relief to the gritty working of a piece of art. Appropriately set largely in Los Angeles, the film grapples with notions of originality and authenticity contrasted against celebrity.
An issue that often plagues artists is originality and authenticity. To be anything more significant than mere decoration, art must constantly push its own boundaries and discover new frontiers of aesthetic exploration. As our society becomes increasingly remixed, truly new ideas become harder and harder to find. The duration of the new is ever decreasing as the rate of recouperation into the cultural feedback loop grows faster and faster. The latest fashions hit the racks of discount clothing stores like H&M mere days after debut on runways in Paris, Milan, and New York. Music, painting, photography, performance, all become elements to be remixed upon their release into the cultural data streams due to the near instantaneous rates of communication we have developed.
This fast culture, much like fast food, might satisfy our immediate desires but is not necessarily the healthiest option. Just as the cutting edge of food has taken on slow as its moniker, perhaps culture at large would do well to consider a slower pace. Slow art.
I went to the Whitney Biennial the other day and was radically underwhelmed by the work presented. The biennial, by focusing on contemporary American art, gives a kind of snapshot look at the state of the artworld right now. While I can only assume the camera was in focus, the image it rendered was dull and uninspired. Like the work of Mister Brain Wash in Exit Through the Gift Shop it felt dull, repetitive, uninspired, and derivative. The work felt bored. Not boring, bored. As if there were no suitable subjects left to cover. Or the work had been created without bothering to truly look and find a suitable subject.
There was no sense of a point of view displayed, although there was lots of amazing technique. Don’t get me wrong, there was immense talent. But the talent resided at a craft level only. That deeper level of inspiration was lacking.
Art is first about looking. Before you can make, you must see. You must be able to see the world around you as the unique thing that it is. Then you must see it anew. When you create, you are presenting the world with a window into your particular vision of that world. Duchamp, after Nude Descending a Staircase, taught the world to see differently. He taught us to see both the world in general, and art in particular in a wholly new light. He called the very notion of art, of what can be art, into question.
We can see these kinds of aesthetic ruptures in the flow of creation throughout the history of art. Caravaggio is another game changer. As critic Robert Hughes has said, “there was art before him and art after him, and they were not the same.”
Banksy has garnered international recognition for his work through politicizing an inherently political art form. Graffiti has been around since humanity lived in caves. The first art was public art executed on walls in public space. It is as old as human consciousness itself. In its modern form it rose to prominence in New York in the 1970′s appearing on subway cars and train cars. Despite some critical acclaim it did not truly hit the mainstream until, like many American artforms, it had a white face to champion the medium. Like Elvis turning Blues to Rock and Roll or Shepard Fairey turning Grafiti into street art, the work was finally given an establishment legitimacy it previously lacked.
Banksy radicalized the form by creating deeply political works in highly charged locations like Israel’s West Bank barrier. His own work has called into question the legitimacy of art world standards as far as what qualifies as art by placing his own works inside museums like London’s National Gallery clandestinely.
Every generation of artists asks the same questions. What is art? Why is art? The questions are answered, for better or worse, through the work itself. Some years may be inspired and some dull. The task of the artist is to keep asking the questions and to answer as honestly and authentically as possible. In order to arrive at a truly authentic answer, we must slow down and take the time to look.
Tags: art, authenticity, film
