I found the most interesting and relevant part of this film was when the film maker turned street artist know as MBW (Mr BrainWash) attempts to set up his own exhibition in a huge abandoned space with very little experience and knowledge of the art scene. From start to finish he seemed to have no idea about how to go about making the exhibition a success. His venue was a large abandoned building of which he used about 6 large rooms all with different themes, similar to how we are exhibiting. At one stage towards the end he sought the help of a couple of promoters who went around the venue deciding what needed to be done, how and when. They made a good point that we need to consider, which is that one room looked finished and perfect, however this made the other rooms look rubbish in comparison. We need to ensure that the quality of both the physical walls and paint finish, and the work itself, is consistent throughout all the rooms.
Most of the physical work was done by a team of builders and artists who could work with the space for a couple of months, tailoring it to MBWs particular preferences. This will be a major issue with our exhibition I think, because of the limited time scale we have to hang the pieces. Due to having an extra week to complete our work it will only leave us with two days in which to focus entirely on the setting up of the exhibition, a very small period of time. This means that most of us will be aiming to complete all our work to the highest standard before even thinking properly about the physical things that need to happen to the space to make it a success.
The most interesting point of the exhibition that he put on, for me, was the fact that it was such a huge success, not because of the nature of the work, or the art itself, but the fact that Banksy had promoted it. The general public had no idea who Mr Brainwash was until one article in LA Today, and a giant billboard with a quote from Banksy himself; 'Mr Brainwash is a force of nature, he's a phenomenon. And I don't mean that in a good way.' This instant affiliation with the most successful street artist of all time meant that his exhibition was almost bound to be an instant success, especially when most of his work is simply ripping off other street artists' work. Maybe this is what we need for our exhibition, a press release from a famous artist to justify our validate our exhibition. The overnight success of MBW also provokes the question in every artists mind, what makes you a success? The fellow street artists seemed to be very annoyed and dismissing of MBW by the end of the film and the fact that the public were lapping up his work which had no context or thought behind it at all. He managed to sell over a million dollars worth of work in the first week with no artistic background and no real grip on reality, even being commissioned to do the album cover of Madonna's greatest hits.
