Mr. Brainwash (French 1966 - ) PUP ART (BLUE)

Hammer

R40,000

Mr. Brainwash (French 1966 - ) PUP ART (BLUE)

More Information

signed and numbered 31/50 in pencil; dated 2012 and bearing the artist's thumbprint on the reverse
screenprint with hand-finished spray paint and stencil on Archival Art paper
sheet size: 56,5 by 57cm; 67 by 67 by 4cm including framing


Mr Brainwash, pseudonym for French-born contemporary artist Thierry Guetta, is a controversial name in the art world, either revered or reviled. Guetta’s relationship and collaboration with Banksy was the tipping point for the artist’s career, and he found fame as an artist almost over night, reinventing himself as Mr Brainwash. He creates art that subverts popular societal narratives by appropriating culturally significant images, juxtaposing them with elements of street art and graffiti, and completely undermining the intended tone of these symbols.

Mr Brainwash has faced much criticism in recent years. The artist’s works have been ridiculed and critiqued as having no original thought, no meaning, no authenticity, and no beauty. However, others argue that Mr Brainwash is an artist making art for his time reflects his world in the process.
The world and society that surrounds the artist is Euro-Centric, capitalistic, and almost anything can be commodified. Mr Brainwash cynically recognises that he is part of this world and an active participant. He has built a career exploiting the vapid artificiality of the art world and societal fads, while simultaneously criticizing it. There has been much discussion surrounding the artist’s work and how it stands at odds with what Walter Benjamin defines as the ‘aura’ of art; that being an artworks’s uniqueness and authenticity in connection with the reproduction of images. The question is then raised as to whether a mist of spray paint and hand-worked stencils counteract this concept, and constitute the authenticity required by Benjamin for an image to be considered ‘art’. But, is this what Mr Brainwash is trying to achieve? Does art always have to have true meaning and authenticity?

Mr Brainwash is often compared to Banksy, but considered by many to be a less socially-conscious, money-hungry inferior to the partially-anonymous British street artist. Banksy and Mr Brainwash offer two conflicting views on the intent of their work, and street art in particular, and how it should (or shouldn’t) be commodified. Banksy takes on a far more political, almost guerrilla-like stance, encouraging the general public to reconsider social structures. The artist generally abhors the idea of street art being commodified stating in regard to art auctions, “All of a sudden they were selling street art, and everything was going a bit crazy, and everything was about the money, but it never was about the money” (Boddy: 44). Guetta adopts a very different approach, but does not shy away from the idea that he deceives people into spending money on churned out, reproduced images in an attempt to criticise, consciously defying the idea of authentic and unique art. In this way, the artist is completely self-aware. Herman Rapaport’s book, “Is There Truth in Art?”, parallel to Benjamin’s arguments on what defines art, discusses these ideas, and he states “works of art are supposed to routinely question aesthetic and metaphysical protocols, among them, beauty, harmony, grace, balance, coherence, and truth” (Rapaport: 10). It could then be argued that works should always challenge the ideals of art and what constitutes meaning, beauty and truth, and Guetta does exactly this by defying the art world status quo, whether or not one agrees with the means by which this is achieved.

Perhaps Mr Brainwash then poses the question as to whether there is truth in his art, and the art world as a whole. This sweeping question could be argued from a multitude of standpoints, but it may be feasible that Mr Brainwash’s works are a very clear attempt to debunk the art establishment, and that his works are subjectively authentic, as how can one exist in a place with constructed ideals of beauty, meaning and substance while simultaneously existing in the commodified society that created it? “Because of the artist’s plight—that of living in a commercial world—the side effect of greatness is, sometimes, profit. Success, therefore, does not immediately determine beauty in art, or a lack thereof” (Boddy:42).
- A.C


Benjamin, W. Arendt, H. and Zohn, H. (1968) Illuminations. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, p:229

Boddy, C. (2013) Exit Through the Wasteland: The Search for Artistic Beauty in a Commodified World. Beauty in Literature, History, and Culture, pp 39-52. [O]:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180410151851id_/https://www.westga.edu/academics/coah/english/assets/docs/SrSemAnthology_201301_Mitchell.pdf#page=39
Accessed 22 May 2022

Rapaport, H. (1997) Is There Truth in Art? Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p:10