This week I borrowed a Frank O'Hara poem as a response to the Banksy film Exit Through the Gift Shop. I find the whole Banksy phenomenon hard to swallow—do we really need to be upset that a single Banksy rat stencil was lost in a Melbourne street-cleaning?
When I worked at a Capitol Hill bookstore, two types of people picked up the Banksy book Wall and Piece we carried: young guys in hoodies browsing the pages and older folks dressed for a night out who would bring a copy to the register and ask “do you have a clean copy of this for me to buy?” This distinction between Banksy consumers is further defined by Exit Through the Gift Shop (it can’t be a coincidence that forged Princess Di banknotes are the best art he’s ever made).
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