Mr. Brainwash Art

Mr. Brainwash ("MBW") is a pseudonym for Thierry Guetta, a supposed French videographer, street artist and pop artist who is purported to be living in Los Angeles. A brief narrative of Guetta's personal history, as well as the story of his introduction to the world of street art, are told in the 2010 film Exit Through The Gift Shop, which claims to include original footage of street artists at work, shot by Guetta over a period of eight years. The uniformly subversive artwork attributed to Guetta strongly emulates the styles and artistic concepts of other well-known street artists including Banksy and Shephard Fairey, both of whom supposedly collaborated with Guetta on Exit Through the Gift Shop. Like Banksy, Guetta employs famous and historic images, many of which are protected by copyright, and amends the originals in slight or significant ways to achieve an ironic and often politically or socially biting effect. However, while Banksy often transfers such images to other media, Guetta states in the film that his work largely consists of simply "scanning and photoshopping". Other works attributed to Guetta also mimic pop artist Andy Warhol's iconic Campbell's Soup cans; in Exit Through the Gift Shop Banksy suggests that Guetta, having nearly copied Warhol's universally recognizable cans, had effectively rendered an already-superficial series of art "completely meaningless". Guetta's first show Life is Beautiful opened in Los Angeles June 18, 2008. The Mondriart Series was released in 2009 by the artist and features 7 different color options. In 2009, Guetta created the cover art for Madonna's Celebration album and on February 14, 2010, his second show ICONS opened in New York City.