British street artist Banksy has been vilified and glorified, reviled and revered, but one thing remains as unshakeable as his spray-can-slinging bravado: He’s a true cultural icon. Nowhere do both his genius and his penchant for controversy shine more brightly than in Exit Through the Gift Shop, the groundbreaking documentary about the elusive graffiti master and compelling larger commentary about the role of street art in contemporary culture, its oft-questioned commodification, and the even higher-order question of what constitutes talent in any art. The film swept the indie film and left audiences with eyes wide open as they took a rare look of a reclusive underground world and eyebrows raised high as they spun wild conspiracy theories about the film. (We need not say anything further — if you’ve seen it, you know what we’re talking about, and if you haven’t, anything we say would be a spoiler, that’s how good it is.)
Today is the day, that much-anticipated day that Exit Through the Gift Shop is released on DVD and Blu-ray. But wait, here’s the oh-so-special part: We’re giving away 10 copies of the DVD — complete with exclusive artwork, deleted scenes and even a “lawyer’s edit” — to Brain Pickings readers, courtesy of Wooster Collective.
To snag one, just sign up for our free weekly newsletter if you haven’t already and leave a comment below telling us what your favorite Banksy piece is. On Friday (12/17), we’ll use a random number generator to select the 10 lucky winners to walk away with a copy of the year’s most daring independent film.
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What makes Trespass different from other street art books is that it’s not a street art book. It’s a book that certainly includes street art and graffiti but goes beyond that to also address performance, protest, sculpture, and the whole goal of the book was to really look at the context of street art in a much larger historical perspective.” ~ Marc Schiller
Trespass comes from Taschen, easily the most visually ambitious publisher today, whom you may recall from the superb Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made. Which means the book is an absolute visual gem and photographic treat of the most indulgent kind.
From Guatemalan guerrilla gardeners to icons like Banksy and Barry McGee, Trespass is as much an exhaustive compendium of compelling artwork as it is a modern manifesto for activism, democracy and freedom of speech.
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In April, we featured A Love Letter For You — sign painter and street artist Steve Powers‘ wonderful ongoing graffiti love letter to Philadelphia, stretching across 50 building facades along 20 blocks. Now, Powers is back with another love letter, this time for the Near West Side community of Syracuse, NY.
I made a very adult version of what graffiti is to me — and that is, a vehicle for projecting larger ideas.” ~ Steve Powers
Powers walked around the Near West Side neighborhood and all of Syracuse, talking to people about what they love and hate about their community in order to unearth the basic human truths that would inform and inspire his artwork.
What makes Powers’ work particularly noteworthy is that it bends the definition of street art in a number of ways — it isn’t uncommissioned and illegal, done under the radar of city authority, but rather sanctioned and embraced by the city in a collaborative context; nor is it the singular voice of a sole artist, but rather the choir of a community channelled through the artist’s creative point of view.
As far as we’re concerned, every city needs a love letter. Bravo, Steve.
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Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it's cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week's best articles. Here's an example. Like? Sign up.
British street artist Banksy has been vilified and glorified, reviled and revered, but one thing remains as unshakeable as his spray-can-slinging bravado: He’s a true cultural icon. Nowhere do both his genius and his penchant for controversy shine more brightly than in Exit Through the Gift Shop, the groundbreaking documentary about the elusive graffiti master and compelling larger commentary about the role of street art in contemporary culture, its oft-questioned commodification, and the even higher-order question of what constitutes talent in any art. The film swept the indie film and left audiences with eyes wide open as they took a rare look of a reclusive underground world and eyebrows raised high as they spun wild conspiracy theories about the film. (We need not say anything further — if you’ve seen it, you know what we’re talking about, and if you haven’t, anything we say would be a spoiler, that’s how good it is.)
Today is the day, that much-anticipated day that Exit Through the Gift Shop is released on DVD and Blu-ray. But wait, here’s the oh-so-special part: We’re giving away 10 copies of the DVD — complete with exclusive artwork, deleted scenes and even a “lawyer’s edit” — to Brain Pickings readers, courtesy of Wooster Collective.
We’ve got a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.
