“Art” Sounds Like “Heart”. Make Your Own Pun.

So a few weeks ago, when my cousin Emily was visiting me in Toronto, we went to see the new movie by Banksy, Exit Through the Gift Shop. And it brought me to this conclusion: I don’t like art.

You may think  I’m inferring far too much from a single film; you might argue that the only thing that I can reasonably conclude I don’t like is Exit Through the Gift Shop, or, perhaps, Banksy. But because Banksy’s film is about art — or because it seems to suggest that what I don’t like about it is the key feature of art — I find my conclusion justified.

So. If art is about the way it leaves you feeling, I left Exit Through the Gift Shop with the strong feeling that I’d like to kick Banksy in the shins. One of the things about art that annoys me is it’s perfectly valid to say, “Aha, but that’s what he wants you to feel! It means you’re Thinking about Issues!” Well, maybe for more profound people, it does mean that, but for me, it means that I’m thinking about various more delightful art forms I could have supported with my $12 and 90 minutes.

And here’s the thing: the reason I’m thinking that is precisely because there’s no way for me to respond to accusations that I only think I don’t like Exit Through the Gift Shop because I’m Doing Art Wrong. The point of consuming capital-A Art isn’t to focus on the parts that annoy me, you might argue. Art isn’t about liking or disliking any more than life is about succeeding or failing. Art’s about experiencing, grappling, responding, challenging, interacting — a process, not an end goal. It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.

Banksy’s film is  a mischievous one: it toys with the viewers, asking us to accept ridiculous characters who seem too exaggerated to be true but who nevertheless are real (or is it just that the contrivance extends outside the cinema?). It shunts every doubt back onto the viewers, teasing us to find the truth if we are worthy and if such a thing exists . In short, it’s a giant game Banksy is playing with his audience.

Ostensibly, the film is about Theirry Guetta, a would-be video-biographer of Banksy and other street artists, who winds up making himself into an overnight art sensation despite playing off others’ ideas and hiring various third parties to actually sculpt, paint, and mould his concepts into life. Guetta is set up as a ridiculous Frenchman wiz an oooooutrageous accent, who may or may not be a character created by Banksy and other artists to pull off an elaborate real-life hoax. But who cares? The first part of the film is the history of street art, abridged, and from Space Invader’s tile pixel art to Shepard Fairey’s OBEY posters, we see the point of the operation: to get people to think. The but-is-it-art question surrounding Guetta’s work highlights the principle. Is his stuff art because people come to see it? Are the fans lining up outside his exhibit dupes of hype or do they legitimately infuse the pieces with the meaning the artist failed to consider? If it inspires people to reconsider the world around them, even if it was made with no intention to capture their imaginations that way, can it still be art?

Perhaps the most telling point in the film is the one in which Banksy shows Guetta a stockpile of fake pound-notes with Princess Diana’s face on them instead of the Queen’s; this, he informs Guetta (and us), is a failed art project. It’s not that the concept wasn’t interesting, or that Banksy and his team were unable to execute it — instead, people just didn’t notice the difference.  There’s a fine line between an artist and a counterfeiter: one tries to get people not to notice the details of their lives, and the other tries to make audiences take another look at the ordinary things surrounding them. That’s the game that’s so integral to art: take this object or this image or this concept. What does it really mean? Can it really mean anything? What if I do this? Let’s play!

At this point, you may be tempted to ask: so what’s your problem, Sarah? I thought you found games fun.

See, although I spend plenty of time lounging with my Nintendo DS or hunched over a board with friends, I don’t actually like most games. I have no patience for formulating long, drawn-out strategies for Risk or chess; if you force me to play to win, I can manage, but I’m just too lazy to think ten moves ahead or imagine all the possible responses of my opponents. I like quick problems that admit short, clever solutions, like trivia, or challenges  about exploring different types of communication, like Charades or Celebrities. But put something in front of me that requires meta-thought, and my eyes will glaze over.

What I’m trying to say is, this is me (1:45-1:47).

So, no matter how clever the game, I resent paying being unwittingly drawn into a ridiculously complicated match with Banksy and his fellow artists, one I never asked to play, especially when it’s a Calvinball-escapade that never ends in which it’s against the rules to know any of the rules. Yes, yes, what is art, how do we know what’s real, what does it mean to be genuine, whatever. I’m interested in these things sometimes, just like I occasionally do enjoy playing Risk, but I’m interested in discussing them when I choose, just like I would not enjoy it if a stranger on the subway set up a Risk board and refused to let me disembark until I conquered Asia.

Perhaps this demonstrates nothing more than the fact that I have bad taste and even worse aesthetic sense; if you’ve seen the way I dress, I suppose I can’t deny this. But, luckily, I’m not trying to prove that there’s something wrong with Art or with Banksy or, indeed with anyone. I’m just trying to explain how a particular movie made me feel.

Like a player, but also a pawn.