The first 60 minutes introduce the audience to Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant who has a second-hand clothing store in L.A. and films everything in his daily life, swirling toilets and all. He goes back to France at some point and learns his cousin is Invader, the street artist who glues tiles onto city sidewalks–they all look vaguely like something out of the classic video game Space Invaders. Caught up in this realm, Guetta begins filming the actions of street artists. In a montage of street artists we see Borf (the former Corcoran art student from McLean, Va.) and Swoon (who has shown locally at Irvine Contemporary). Eventually Guetta bumps into Shepard Fairey (who has also shown at Irvine) in a Kinkos in L.A. and Guetta convinces Fairey that he is making a documentary about street art; Guetta becomes Fairey’s unofficial documentarian for the next several years. It’s all very riveting: a glimpse of behind-the-scenes prep work, of tagging in action, of running from the cops, of arrests.

Then, Guetta meets Banksy, and is permitted access to Banksy’s world as he prepares for his L.A. show “Barely Legal,” which drew thousands of visitors in the few days it exhibited, and upset countless animal rights activists for the live elephant the artist painted and exhibited.

Every second of the first 60 minutes is believable, if not incredible. But after Banksy asks to see a cut of the film Guetta has been working on, the movie exits the realm of plausibility. It isn’t because Guetta isn’t really working on a movie, or that he has never looked at the countless hours of documentation he has recorded. It also isn’t because Guetta claims to have made a rough cut, which Banksy later claims to hate. And it isn’t because Banksy encourages Guetta to become his own artist, and that Guetta heeds the advice and begins making and documenting his own street art. It’s what Guetta accomplishes in less than a year.

Guetta reinvents himself as Mr. Brain Wash. He sells off investments, hires hordes of assistants, gets publicists, and essentially makes a production line of work that looks vaguely like something Shepard Fairey or Banksy might make: highly designed, sometimes political, sometimes apolitical, and everything appropriated. What’s appropriated has all the creativity of a college-level Intro to Appropriation: too much Warhol, and Britney Spears, and Kate Moss; too many knock-offs, one-liners, and weak attempts at irony. All of the work is in preparation for a giant exhibition at the abandoned CBS Columbia Square studios in L.A., which Guetta rents for several months to put together a one-week show. It’s overwhelming! Then three weeks before the big opening, Guetta falls, breaks his foot. Everything comes together last-minute. The show is a big success! A five-day show becomes a two-month engagement. Over a million dollars in art is sold. I can’t help but laugh. This is unreal!

And, in truth, it very well may be. After its debut at Sundance last year, it seemed that every movie critic speculated whether the film was a hoax. We can argue if Guetta really made all the work; hoax is entirely the wrong word. Guetta is real. The thousands of hours of tapes are (likely) real. The documentation of street artists is real. The assistants who made the work for the art show were real. The art–if you can call it art–was real. Even the art show in L.A. was real.  Still, I can’t help wonder if Guetta is the Tony Clifton to Banksy’s and Fairey’s Andy Kaufman. And, if there is manufacturing at play, does the movie really merit an Oscar nom for best documentary?

Documentary filmmaking isn’t what it used to be. Actually, it never was to begin with. For as much crap as labeled docugandists Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock get, the objective of many documentary films is to present a thesis and to selectively support that thesis. The practice goes back to Nanook from the North in 1922, when the director requested the subject of the film (whom the director named Nanook) abandon his gun and hunt with a traditional spear. The director also constructed a three-quarters igloo for interior shots.  Wildlife filmmakers sometimes manufacture kill shots, placing debilitated prey in the path of the predator to get the desired shot. Even Ken Burns, perhaps the most notable documentarian of our time, has been called out for omitting the contribution of Latinos during World War II. Still, the hunt scenes in Nanook are real–animals did die. Those lions sleeping on the savanna are real. And, despite the omissions, intended or accidental, the narrative Burns reconstructed was real. Banksy’s film can legitimately be considered a documentary film–because much of it was real.

To get at the root of why this may have been a prank requires an examination of some past projects of Banksy. All street-art is a prank. The good stuff requires wit so that the passers-by won’t discredit it as mere vandalism. Sometimes the wit is in the quality of the image. Scale and location also help, as Borf demonstrated locally when he painted a sign on an overpass. Banksy took street-art many steps beyond painting or wheat-pasting an image to a building.

In 2004, Banksy altered the 10-pound note and replaced the head of the queen with the head of Princess Dianna. The notes fell into circulation and were spent in pubs throughout London. In 2006, Banksy removed several hundred copies of Paris Hilton’s debut album from music stores and replaced them with an altered version of the art and disc. Both acts have real legal consequences, and he still did them. If this movie is “a hoax,” there are no legal repercussions. Why not make a fake movie? To piddle our time asking if the movie was a ruse misses the major points of the movie.

Banksy, Fairey, and the other street artists briefly highlighted never made street art to become rich. They may not have even done it for the notoriety of namesake and recognition. They did it for a myriad of reasons: boredom, anger, rebellion, anarchy, the rush. I doubt Fairey, as an art student at the Rhode Island School of Design, considered that his little “Andre the Giant has a Posse” stickers might some day lead to a career in which he earned thousands of dollars for a screenprint, let alone a lawsuit for copyright infringement. But it did. Banksy likely never thought that the first image of a painted rat would lead to his work being collected by Hollywood stars. But it has.

Though a tag on the street might not be intended to defy the nature of commerce–and therefore the commercial gallery system–it does. So, there is inherent irony that these guys who plaster and paint stuff on walls along the street for free, eventually get exhibited by dealers and have their works snagged up by collectors for a fee. For every store owner who wants to pay thousands to remove the work there are 30 collectors willing to pay thousands to consume the work. Eventually the work is not celebrated for the heft of craft or message, it is celebrated for the hype of branding. And Banksy is the biggest brand. He knows it. And chances are he probably thinks it's kinda stupid, and he wants you to know that, too.

This movie is a critique of the gallery culture that willingly whips up a frenzy around street art. It is a critique of the media culture that is capable of converting Guetta, a no-name second-hand clothier and two-bit sham, into a visionary artist. Now that the movie is up for an Academy Award, it becomes a critique of that system, too. If it wins, it will inadvertently become a symbol of how we prefer the distraction of Banksy and his delicious “prankumentary” over heavier concerns, like how military units stay together when fighting in a war zone, or how fracking for natural gas can turn tap water into a flammable substance, or how a population of poor people scavenge the dumps around Rio de Janeiro in search of sustenance and a sustainable living. There are more important issues out there. Yet, considering how easily distracted we are, the movie reminds us that Guetta is not the only source of Brain Wash.

Despite appearing in the Banksy documentary Exit through the Gift Shop, Tsombikos now disavows street art, and the small show highlights media other than the spray-painted grinning-kid stencils (the actual "Borf") that were ubiquitous in DC in 2004 and 2005.  Yet the show traffics in the same antinomian spirit that made Tsombikos the most prolific public vandal since Cool "Disco" Dan.  The very title of the show, "Potty Trained at Gunpoint," reflects the kids-versus-grownups motif that pervaded the Borf graffiti campaign.  A bevy of pilfered CCTV cameras are mounted on the wall as trophies, and photos document the shoplifting of consumer items on display, including a can of Warhol’s preferred brand of soup.  The centerpiece, though, results from a more benign and meticulous act of theft, a streetscape made of torn posters from the gentrifying neighborhood it depicts.

"Potty-Trained at Gunpoint" runs through Sunday.  The Fridge then prepares for Graham Boyle’s "Thrive, Despite!," a tragicomic display of activist art riffing on environmental chaos, which opens Saturday, Oct. 16 at 7 p.m.

The Fridge is located in the rear alley of 516 8^th St. SE.  Hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 1:00 – 7:00 pm and Sunday 1:00 to 5:00 pm.  Free.

New Wale Single, DC Graffiti, DMV Awards, Lyriciss and more!

Wale is kicking his 2009 project plan into lightspeed this week-launching what looks like the album release campaign. His mixtape with 9th Wonder drops tomorrow, the lead single Chillin drops on Friday, he'll be down at Winter Music Conference later this month and hitting the college circuit the whole time. Oh, and he just caught his first hockey game. All you aspiring rappers take note-Wale's interactive marketing strategy is sick. Don't think you're going to twitter your way into web 2.0 marketing synergy like that. Double bonus-you get major media press (XXL, The Source, Spin, Vibe, ETC) in the summer when you send out press-releases in the spring.

On Wednesday there will be a double feature of DC Graffiti Documentaries held by Words Beats and Life-a dope DC non-profit that does hip hop arts and education work. I heard both these flicks are hot-check em out!.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 9:30pm – 11:30pm
Words Beats & Life Headquarters (St. Stephen's Church)
1525 Newton St. N.W.

BORF! by Paris Bustillos – 9:45 p.m. (running time-26 min.)

CHOCOLATE CITY BURNING: THE UNTOLD STORY OF "DOT-COM" by Apoxy One 0:15 p.m. (running time-54 min.)

This event is free. Donations welcome.

DOUBLE BONUS: Asad ULTRA Walker has a dope post over at his blog about DC Go-Go Graffiti history!

The DMV Entertainment and Music Awards (warning – site with totally annoying autoplaying music) were recently announced – check the nominees here. Shoutouts to Sarah Godfrey for getting nominated for "Most Supportive Media Person." Bigups to all nominees and best of luck to everyone! IT'S AN HONOR TO BE NOMINATED. YOU COULD PUT IT ON YOUR MANTLE.

Overall, the award nominees where mostly what I expected: In general the usual suspects and a bunch of people I hadn't yet heard of. In the future I hope they can make these awards a little more representative of who is really making noise on the scene and who just has a good e-team voting for them to get an award...

Ra the MC will be performing at the DMV awards – check out this video including some of her performance at Jamming Java. And yeah, what do you know about her DJ Premier produced track? I mean, what other MC from DC has a Primo beat? Check her myspace for a stream of "Anything You Like".

Lyriciss has a new mixtape "The Day Job" (z-share link) and a new video for his single "Go Hard" featuring XO and Pro'Verb. The kid is nice and has been putting in mega-work overtime on his fast-rising career. I found myself in a deep head-nod while listening, smirking at his punchlines. Rookie of the year!

T.E.F.L.O.N sent me this exclusive freestyle over XO's Realmatic instrumental by BKS. It's dope. I love that beat and have been spitting over it the lil instrumental break at the end all week.

Whats good everyone, I know i'm late on a drop this month so I wanted to hit everyone with a quickie for right now... Here's a little something i did over a track off of an upcoming DC artist named X.O.'s album called "Realmatic". Go google it, download, support it, etc.. It's produced by Best Kept Secret. Hit me with some feedback, I got alot of shit in store for when it warms up outside.

"REALMATIC FREESTYLE"

http://www.zshare.net/audio/571392322033edbd/

2008.  The international year of planet earth for the moment. Art is dead, and this dead horse sure can run.  So, when the Borf Brigade, a group of dilettantes, trouble-makers, and anti-socialites was asked to write about the past year for the City Paper, we had a good chuckle. In keeping with the usual boredom and posturing of the indoor art industry, we decided to flex our art review jargon and report on the notable… uh, stuff… of this year in "art."

This year saw the end of local stronghold for miscreants and youth, the Bobby Fisher Memorial.  Located just blocks from the former Crispus Attucks Museum and Youth Center, this majestic palace, which had been semi-squatted on a tenuous lease since 2007, was the site of many dingy punk shows, as well as some of the city's finer wall scribbling exhibitions. Powered by generator and wired by extension chords, our Acropolis hosted a single MC battle, the first east coast appearance in five years by legendary slop-punk band The Bananas, the 7 foot signature of Cool Disco Dan, and top of the line non-art-market affiliated "art."

The "Best Graffiti Crew" title goes to the D.P.W. (Department of Public Works). Graffiti is usually thought of as the illegal application of paint or re-facing surfaces without the approval of a property owner. Since the passage of mayor Fenty's aggressive abatement measures in 2007 the D.P.W. has been doing it best.  But only this year did they come into their own and show their true colors, (usually burgundy and grey). Their beautifully hand painted squares on public and private property transcend the conventions of the hastily sprayed nicknames of disempowered youths, leaving us wondering… how do they get away with it?

The best painting of 2008 was realized by local kid, Malorie Something-Something, when she snuck out late one November night with a gallon of flat black latex paint and a cheap brush.  Alone, she painted an entire playground black. When asked about her intentions behind the piece, Malorie said she did it because "flat black is the best color."

Easily, the best political performance piece of the year was executed by the "Big Three" of the auto industry.  Utilizing relics from a time long past, the CEOs arrived in Washington via private luxury jets, a very hip and retro comment on the bourgeois excess of the now archaic age of American capitalism.

Wait, what about when Nick's dog shat on Donald Rumsfeld's lawn?

Yeah, that too.

To finish off the year of the potato, the city sadly decided to close one of our favorite permanent installations, the free distribution of bus transfers.  The bus transfer exhibit was easily the most socially moving exhibit the city had to offer.  It moved us freely to and from all corners of the city.

The Borf Brigade is an arts collective that claimed responsibility for a wave of vandalism in the District and other cities that ended in the arrest of founder John Tsombikos in 2005, as well as a series of video communiques and an art exhibition.  Their gallery space, the Bobby Fisher Memorial Center, closed this year.

All contributors to this series were guests on DISSONANCE, a DC punk oral histories show on Radio CPR. John Tsombikos and the Borf Brigade's interview can be heard here.