Recently our family has gotten Netflix, and needless to say I have been watching a number of documentaries over the past few weeks, the skyrocketing amount of bandwidth being used a minor concern. I watched a documentary recently called Exit Through the Gift Shop, a 2010 production about the street art movement, mainly focusing on a French immigrant turned filmmaker and his obsession with the art form, as well as the mysterious street artist Banksy, who has achieved fame as a result of his satirical or unique graffiti work throughout several major cities around the world.
I've never thought much for/about graffiti. I live Burlington, the city usually rated as the number one or number two place to live in Canada, and the most graffiti I see is when a train is passing by my house and some of the train cars have been vandalized. And that's what it is. It's vandalism, and it's stupid. A scribble here or a sketch there, but for the most part it is nothing worth looking at twice.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi22vUit7bqhk-ReeRpPFwgI7l-PjiazTtQZfZoQqsko0Y2wHc04RomsE0-ZljcvDi5JCPO6vvEVA79s-Q0z_fmr-Ux5hRJtTxG4Twejm1t0b9vPfqgGCe1hTM2usf8sNrPC-W_kMWl08qC/s320/wh-banksy-baloon-girl.jpg)
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But the street work done by Banksy is mesmerizing for me to look at for some reason, like it is a form of elevated graffiti and important to be seen. I don't want to write a lengthy post on why or how he does it, because I just like his art, and I wanted to share some of it. Is it still vandalism? I would think so, but I'm not so sure it matters, and perhaps making gray and dull cities a little more interesting isn't so bad after all.
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