Exit through the gift shop

Street art is a form of contemporary art, developed in public spaces, mostly in the streets, misjudged by a lot of people as vandalism. The term street art can include traditional graffiti artwork, sculpture, stencil graffiti, sticker art, wheatpasting and street poster art, video projection, guerilla art and street installations. Typically, the term street art or the more specific postgraffiti is used to distinguish contemporary public-space artwork from territorial graffiti, vandalism and corporate art. Whereas traditional graffiti primarily used free-hand aerosol paints to produce their works, street art encompasses many other media and techniques, including: LED art, mosaic tiling, murals, stencil art, sticker art, Lock On street sculptures, street installations, wheatpasting, woodblocking, video projection, and yam bombing. Traditional graffiti has increasingly been adopted as a method of adevertising because of its trajectory which has led artists to work on contract as graphic designers for corporations. What is more, street art is a label often adopted by artists who wish to keep their work strongly political, mostly because their work is still largely done without approval.

For this reasons, street art is sometimes considered post-graffiti and sometimes even neo-graffiti. Street art can be found around the world and artists often travel to other foreign countries so they can spread their designs, ideas and beliefs. Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director and painter. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humor with graffiti done in a distinctive stenciling technique. Such artists works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world. Banksys work was made up of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaboration between artists and musicians. Known for his contempt of the government in labelling graffiti as vandalism, Banksy displays his art on public surfaces such as walls, even going as far as to build physical prop pieces. He also sells photos of street graffiti directly himself; however, art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and lead the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder. Banksys first film, Exit through the gift shop billed as the worlds first street art disaster movie, made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The film was released in the UK on 5 march 2010. In January 2011, the movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary for the film.