Contemporary Art & Design presents Mr Brainwash (Thierry Guetta)

Mr Brainwash (Thierry Guetta)

Thierry Guetta, also known as Mr Brainwash, is a French street artist who arrived in Los Angeles as a teenager. Before becoming an artist he owned a vintage store in the city, but his great passion was film. Wherever he went he brought his video camera along, attempting to capture everything in his environment. On a trip to Paris in 1999 he came to realise that the acclaimed street artist Space Invader, whose real identity had been kept a secret, was actually his own cousin. He began following Space Invader around with his camera and became fascinated by street art as an art form.

On his return to Los Angeles he gravitated towards the American street art scene and ended up meeting the famous Shepard Fairey. For close to a year Guetta observed him as part of a film project, whilst also documenting other street artists. Shortly after the meeting with Fairey, Guetta finally met the anonymous and world-renowned Banksy, who also allowed Guetta to film him. Guetta put together all the material he had on the street artists and made it into a film, which was mostly a collection of fragmented clips that Banksy called “unwatchable”. However, Banksy felt that the raw material was good enough and chose to try and do something of his own with it.