By Jon Courtney
Screenings Programmer, SPACE Gallery

What makes an artist legitimate? Arriving at an answer may be less important than having the discussion and it emerges as central to the heart of the hilariously engaging “documentary” Exit Through the Gift Shop. Exit declares itself to be “A Banksy Film,” noting the notoriously clandestine British street artist, but what that equates to is hard to define. We are rewarded with unprecedented access to the artist (though his appearances are always blurred or backlit and his voice is digitally altered) but as no producer or director is credited in the film, we’re left to speculate as to the extent of Bansky’s actual filmmaking involvement.

Exit follows Thierry Guetta, an eccentric Frenchman from L.A. with a near-compulsive habit of videotaping everything around him. During a family visit to France, Guetta makes a chance discovery that a relative is the acclaimed street artist Invader (née Space Invader). Captivated by Invader’s pursuits, Guetta begins to accompany him on his nocturnal excursions, all the while documenting Invader’s work with his ubiquitous camera. Ostensibly working on a definitive film about street art, Guetta’s association with Invader earns him camera time with almost every major street art player, including artists like Seizer, Neckface, Borf, Buffmonster, Ron English, Swoon, and Shepard Fairey (of Obey and Obama campaign poster fame). The missing piece of Guetta’s collection is the reclusive Banksy, but when an assistant is detained due to visa problems on a trip to L.A., Fairey recommends Guetta to Banksy as a trustworthy replacement.

For Banksy, Guetta proves invaluable in providing documentation of street-level public reaction to his work, a facet as important to the artist as the work itself. Guetta, through persistence and loyalty, (most notably demonstrated during a four-hour detention after a Guantanamo-inspired prank at Disneyland goes awry), gains access to the innermost workings of Bansky’s world, including a tour of the artist’s London studio and a behind-the-scenes view of his wildly popular 2006 Barely Legal opening in L.A. Having captured street art’s rise from its shadowy origins to a highly-lucrative and collectible genre, Guetta is encouraged by Bansky to assemble his massive, but poorly organized archive into a finished product. Deeming the resulting film as an unwatchable work by someone with mental problems, Bansky wrestles the film away from Guetta, encouraging him to try his hand as an artist and Exit takes a narrative turn. Interpreting Bansky’s suggestion as a directive from a respected mentor, Guetta enthusiastically reinvents himself as “Mr. Brainwash” and sets about launching his artistic career with an overly-ambitious warehouse show in L.A. Whether Mr. Brainwash’s premiere is a success is worth the suspense of watching the film, but the questions about artistic legitimacy couldn’t be presented in a more entertaining package. Yes, Exit Through the Gift Shop does serve as a detailed document of the rise of street art, but it’s Guetta’s sweet-but-bumbling foray into the genre and Bansky’s dry commentary that make this more than just a chapter in contemporary art history. The film has enjoyed near-unanimous praise since premiering at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. Ever the showman, Bansky even created a dedicated underground cinema for the film’s London premiere.

This event is the first collaborative screening between SPACE Gallery and the Portland Museum of Art with the aim of combining audiences for exceptional films. Collaborative screenings of Matthew Barney’s vaunted Cremaster Cycle are also scheduled for November 18 through 21 at the Museum.

Tickets are now available at the Museum’s admission desk.