This film is such a provocative x-ray of contemporary / street art – I love how you see and feel the whole range from the earnest and genuinely inspiring, to the utterly soul-devouring mockery of creative substance.
@ruopollo-1
I completely understand where you’re coming from. The term “artist” has been so utterly raped of substance that many artists are even reluctant to describe themselves as artists, since nowadays that term conjures images of monkeys finger-painting on canvases, and pederasts shilling their child porn as “art.”
But as much as I respect (even revere) drawing ability and classical skills and materials, it’s also clear to me that Banksy is making art, and he’s using a completely different skill set and tools to do so. Note that the art team who created MBW’s stuff used many or all of the exact same materials and processes. So, in my mind anyway, it seems very apparent that what’s missing from MBW’s plagiarized and witless rubbish is something more elusive and subtle than classical ability or material processes – what’s missing may be as ethereal as Meaning itself. Now, if we could reach a consensus on the definition of -that-, then maybe we'd get somewhere with an understanding of what art really is.
This is the era of populism and relativism though, so I reckon the galleries will remain stuffed with "art-like product" for quite some time.
@bsharporflat
I agree with your second point – that one of the key messages in the film is that the contemporary art scene isn’t about the art at all, it’s about marketing. Almost nobody gives a *beep* about the art (and those who do usually can’t afford to buy it, so they tend to create it instead), most people only care about the tawdry thrill of brushing a nipple against someone famous and/or perceived as “cool” and “now,” which is whoever throws the biggest show.
But your first comment is insane:
No no no! Ruopollo. YOu are not getting the full and true message.
Mr. Brainwash IS an artist. He is one because he made art and people bought it. Simple and end of story.
That’s the bloodless capitalist econophilosophy that has made the word “artist” synonymous with “cheap whore” and turned the galleries into brothels for the rich and famous. The problem with your claim that MBW is an artist because he made stuff he called art and people bought it, is that the word “art” has been redefined to mean “anything anyone says it is.” So the only difference between a snot-picker and an artist is whether or not the snot-picker sells his snots as art.
This is why the words “art” and “artist” have become meaningless, even repugnant to the majority of people in many first-world nations. They mean less than nothing now, because the only qualification allowed is whether or not you can convince some loser to buy your fart in a balloon as a “work of art.” And that’s complete B.S. that insults the work of every artist who successfully conveys a provocative concept or sensation with the power of visual poetics.
If we refuse to recognize or acknowledge that special shine of quality and substance…that light that makes us feel wonder…which compares in sharp relief to the meaningless and oddly depressing random garbage/plagiarism that other people make with no greater forethought or ingenuity than a lump of old magazines being washed down a storm drain, then the message we share with each other is that artists might as well stop making art, because nothing they do is any better than the accidental crap that blights our urban environments through sheer chance and neglect.
And that’s a deeply soulless response to the artists of the world, who make massive sacrifices and sometimes even take mortal risks to send us the message “you matter…all is not lost…there is something divine within you that I will make you feel so you’ll know that it’s real, so you can burn with it joyously and triumphantly before the demonic machine of rampant global profiteering consumes the last of your warm blood from your heart, to fuel its mindless and hopeless march to nowhere.”
"The observer is the observed." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
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