Mr. Brainwash

MR. BRAINWASH (MBW) is the pseudonym of the French-born Los Angeles-based street artist Thierry Guetta (born 1966), who became famous when he was portrayed in Banksy’s legendary documentary “Exit through the Gift Shop” from 2010.

After learning that his cousin was the infamous street artist “Space Invader”, Thierry Guetta, who at that time was the holder of a chain of vintage shops, began to pursue street artists with handheld camera. Eventually he met the mysterious British street artist Banksy. This coincidence would be the turning point of Guetta’s life and career. Guetta was quickly taken in by Banksy to be his protégée and was allowed to document all of Banksy’s artistic life – something he did too. Even boring, bland moments were carefully documented, resulting in more than ten thousand hours of cinematographic raw material. After seeing a summary of the recordings, Banksy realized that Guetta was totally useless as a filmmaker and convinced him to become an artist instead. In “Exit through the gift shop” we get a chaotic taste bite from Guetta’s amateur film project before Banksy turns the camera against the somewhat cheeky character Guetta himself. The film portrays Guetta on his way from a vintage shop owner with a handheld camera to the street artist Mr. Brainwash.

(source: https://www.fineart.no/kunstner/mr-brainwash)