The one thing I’ve hated most about the consumer culture is the fact that good or bad isn’t judged by the quality of the product or the features, but it’s more affected by who owns it, whose wearing it and how high is it priced. That is not limited to products sold in commercials, made in factories or in designer houses. The same is very true for art, sadly.
An artists with a good PR team will gain more fame and acquire more money then an amazing artsist working on his own. All of this is portrait such brilliantly in ‘Exit through the gift shop’ . Thierry Guetta is well nothing at all, he doesn’t even make his own work, the one that he does make is a blend of already done street art with big paint splatters that he put in. The ‘art’ does not necessarily convey a message, unlike Banskey or fairy. It all just might be a social experiment by Bansky but well it worked. With a huge PR campaign, endorsements from Bansky, the LA weekly and Fairy. Shit sold out, to say the least. The exhibition went on for two months, selling most of the ‘pieces’ and earning Thierry Guetta over a million dollars.
The whole phenomenon is well brilliantly put by Steve Lazarides, “I think the joke is on… I don’t know who the joke’s on – really. I don’t even know if there is a joke.”
Thierry Guetta set out to make some money by selling overpriced modern street art and well he succeeded, of course everyone in the street art business is not going to be pleased by it. A random guy just came out of the blue and made more money in two months then they could ever imagine and that too by selling work that has been there for ages.
Well, one should never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups, if you are in the business to make money well there is nothing wrong with making a quick buck earned on by other peoples stupidity. If you’re in it for the works well you need to stop thinking about who buys your work and for how much, the process of creating art should be full filling for you. If it isn’t well you really should find a side job or well go Thierry Guetta on the public and stop thinking about if it’s ‘art’ you’re creating and feed that stomach.
Overall it’s such an amazing thing to watch, personally I do hope it’s all a hoax created by bansky. It would just take it to a whole new level.
Fahim's Irrational Thoughts 