MBW

Upon viewing the movie ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’ my first thought was “wow, how can I get into street art?” The second half of the film, concerning Mr. Brainwash and his art exhibit “Life is Beautiful” served as an expose into how phony the whole art scene actually is. Here we have a guy, not an artist, just a guy creating $30,000 works of art simply by ripping off other people. His work was little more than rehashed Andy Warhol paintings with spray paint accents and eye patches…and people loved it. People at the exhibit genuinely thought he was a genius rather than some hack trying to take their money. Sure he may not have been completely original, but people loved him anyway, and he made a ton of money. In his first show he was able to achieve what many artists strive for their whole lives: popularity and commercial success.
But the genius of Mr. Brainwash was not in the art (strange as that is for an artist) but rather through his promotion. Enlisting the support of his friends who happen to be major players in the street art game changed his show from emanate disaster into a massive success. He realized that the art has very little to do with making money, success depended on how many people came to the show and how many people bought pieces. He knew that in the world of street art an endorsement from Banksy would be an invaluable asset, so not only did he get one, but he plastered it on a billboard. Sure, he may have been exploiting his friends and ripping off their styles in attempt to make money, but is there anything wrong with that? Given the same situation I was have acted in the same way, so I can’t criticize Terry for “selling out”. Neither can any other artist in my opinion, the man has a family to support, can you really blame him for trying to make money? And besides, what he did was available to any artist, he was just the first to realize the enormous opportunity to make money.
Artistically, Mr. Brainwash is to street art what Thomas Kinkade is to landscapes: different pieces that are all the same. MBW just took popular images and distorted their original meanings to represent the counter-culture. Elvis with an assault rifle or Obama with Marylyn Monroe hair, not exactly high art. Compared to Shepard Fairey’s “Obey” or “Andre the Giant has a posse” MBW is not even on his level. Yet MBW did the Madonna album cover and Fairey is getting sued by the Associated Press, so what kind of statement is that about the art world? That they reward people who make art as easy to digest as possible? Or that no matter how much artistic integrity one may have, popularity is still determined by the masses.