Exit Through the Giftshop

 When I began watching the artwork on Exit Through the Giftshop, everything seemed somewhat original, until it was not. Everything seemed to look like something I had already seen before, either because I'm familiar with the artists' work such as Banksy's or Fairey's, or because when you really think about it, no piece of art is ever 100% original. This brings Mr. Brainwash into the conversation. As soon as I began to watch him create portraits of pop culture icons with some changes and observed his use of the Campbell soup logo, something seemed a little fishy. Andy Warhol's work was renown for exactly those approaches. Although some might say that Mr. Brainwash is appreciating or "continuing" Warhol's art, I see it as more of plagiarizing. Sure, there are some differences. One would be how Warhol liked to accentuate the features of whoever's portrait he is creating, while Mr. Brainwash altered it to send a message that doesn't really align with the artist's background such as photoshopping a rifle into Elvis Presley's arms. Another is that Mr. Brainwash was obsessed with the splattering of paint and creating chaos in his pieces, while Warhol was a little more structured. This does not undo the fact that Mr. Brainwash used the same approach of using neon colors and repetitive printing. Additionally, Mr. Brainwash loved creating portraits of him, as did Warhol. And although they both used the Campbell soup logo iconically, one might say they used them differently as Mr. Brainwash turned it into a sort of spray can. 

Regardless of whether Mr. Brainwash were crediting "his" ideas to Warhol at all, the art cannot be examined without wondering how any of it is even considered art in the first place. Postmodernism sort of shows that anything goes, as Lovejoy says "postmodernism has led to new attitudes and to acceptance of old ones, such as "beauty," as well as new understandings and a pluralistic acceptance of many approaches to art-making, including formal ones" (Lovejoy 87). Every piece of art has a way of being explained, whether by your interpretation or the artist's intentions. Sometimes the message is clear-cut and intentional, and Warhol did this with his work a lot such as with his Mao piece. But when watching Mr. Brainwash's process, especially when he was putting his first exhibition together, it almost seemed like everything was a happy accident, or even an afterthought. Hence, Lovejoy makes a lot of sense when talking about how some artists "point to imperatives of today's issues and the need to reflect the technological culture we live in, commenting on it through the use of contemporary media tools" (Lovejoy 87).