What has to be the final nail in the “Street Art” coffin was driven in last weekend by none other than MR. BRAINWASH (aka: “The Christian Audigier of Street Art”) when he opened his massive, self-produced “Icons” show in a rented space (which, ironically, was once a real art gallery, pre-recession) in the heart of Chelsea. As the subject of Brit Street Art king Banksy’s recent docu-parody film, “Exit Through The Gift Shop,” MBW has been the focus of much hype and speculation as his presence finally seeps into the fairly muddy stream of mainstream consciousness. Last week’s Wall Street Journal article articulated this particularly well:

“Fueling the buzz around Mr. Brainwash is that no one knows exactly who the 44-year-old is. Some Web sites have speculated that he may be an invented character, part of a performance-art hoax. Others think he may, in fact, be the popular British street artist Banksy, whose face has never been shown on camera … “Maybe I am Banksy,” says the enigmatic artist, who says his real name is Thierry Guetta and speaks in a thick French accent. “Maybe not.”

Of course, the most amusing part of all this dumbfounded hypothesizing is how real—and accessible—Mr. Brainwash actually is. Far from actually being Banksy or any other legitimately mysterious street art phantom, MBW is simply Thierry Guetta, aka “French Terry,” a Los Angeles-based French transplant who cut his teeth in recent years by following around the architects of the scene, Shepard Fairey and Banksy, camera in hand, capturing film of them in action for what was to be his own documentary on street art. In the process, Guetta was inspired to follow in the footsteps of his idols and ultimately passed through the looking glass, assuming the incredibly ridiculous moniker of “Mr. Brainwash.” Guetta then forged a visual identity for himself by mining literally every Pop Art gimmick of the past 50 years and running it through the stylistic filter of Fairey and Banksy to achieve his own heavily derivative results. Of course, this would all be an act of genius (or at least considerable humor) if French Terry was doing it as a grand act of parody, skewering the scene he had been so closely observing for all its inherent gimmickry and blasé appropriation. In the process of his conversion, however, French Terry, like the computers in so many Sci-Fi tales, became self-aware, and convinced that he himself was in fact a true artist and the bona-fide “next big thing” of street art. Enter Banksy…

Convinced that Terry—due to his own directorial ineptitude or self-possessed drive to become a street artist himself—would never finish the original film as planned and recognizing the inherent absurdity of the would-be filmmaker’s hilarious conversion, Banksy did what he does best and flipped the tables by taking possession of Guetta’s reels and creating a new documentary with his own team. Focused not on himself or Shepard Fairey as originally intended, “Exit Through The Gift Shop” would instead chronicle French Terry’s amazing transformation as a metaphor for the absurdity of the street art world and Banksy’s own brilliant “take a sucker for all they’re worth” ethos. The result was billed by Banksy as “The world’s first street art disaster movie,” with the film’s trailer showing footage of Terry spilling paint in his truck and walking into signposts while quotes like “in a world with no rules, one man broke them all,” flashed across the screen. You could almost hear the sound of journalists scratching their heads at screenings in Park City (Sundance) and Berlin.

Dateline, February 12, 2010: Following up his self-produced June 2008 one man show in LA (that was itself a direct copy of Banksy’s epic solo show there two years earlier) that was held in a cavernous old abandoned TV studio facilitated by his family’s extensive real estate holdings and chronicled in depth here on Supertouch, French Terry unveils the East Coast installment of his street art apocalypse with the opening of “Icons” at a massive rented defunct gallery space in Chelsea. Featuring an equally absurd array of Warhol-derived celebrity portraiture (using silkscreen and splatter paint along with broken 45 records as his prime medium), mixed with Claes Oldenburg-style object sculpture, and exact replicas of Banksy-style found old master hotel room paintings featuring modern ironic interventionist touches (ie: P-Diddy raising the roof in a Renoir style oil painting) with prices ranging up to the—hold your breath—$300,000 mark, the show was pure MBW through and through. And while serious art collectors scoffed, knowing that the only reason French Terry was going rogue to such extent in NYC (aside from the obvious financial gains of having no gallery to cut in on the take) was because no serious art gallery would touch him, new money suckers and socialites were lining up to fork over the green to invest in the street art equivalent of Bear Stearns. Of course, MBW loyalists would cite his sold out show of work at SoHo’s Opera Gallery late last year as evidence of a real art career, but Opera is simply a tourist art gallery dabbling heavily in so-called “lowbrow” and “street art” of late (with a heavily funded/deluded client base, no less).

So what’s the take away here? Do we love French Terry for what he is? Deride him for who he thinks he is? Embrace him for bringing laughter to our hearts and lips? In the end, we at Supertouch are left to mine our own previous coverage of MBW’s Los Angeles show to deliver an apt closing moral:

“To call last nite’s opening of newly minted and ridiculously named “artist” MR BRAINWASH an “art show” would be a disservice to artists everywhere and even Mr Brainwash himself. Instead, let’s call it what it really is: a grand art prank of epic proportions. A heist. A spoof. A joke. Or maybe just the biggest, funnest, sloppiest high school art fair of all time … In the words of one of LA’s most pioneering street art provocateurs, Skullphone, “if Disneyland wanted to open a street art ride, this is what they’d have done.”

Our prediction for French Terry’s next big project? Our money’s fully on the Mr. Brainwash clothing line by Christian Audigier. It’s just too bad Michael Jackson’s not around to see it (or this show), he would have eaten it up…

HAVE A LOOK:

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“Liberated” billboard in Jersey City by RON ENGLISH…

Jeff gives his moneymaking Hulk series the “thumbs up”, and tests a prototype of his Hulk art car in the warm climes of Florida…

Following in the footsteps of artistic forebears like Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol, among others, Pop Art mogul JEFF KOONS has been chosen by German automaker BMW to create their next signature ART CAR. The innovative series was begun in 1975 when French racecar driver and auctioneer Hervé Poulain commissioned American artist and friend Alexander Calder to paint a BMW 3.0 CSL which Poulain himself would race in the 1975 Le Mans endurance race. Unlike some modern car companies who have copied the program for thier Gen Z Hip Hop econoboxes and allow anyone to paint on their vehicles, BMW has carefully curated this very limited series over the years with less than 20 cars total by artists such as Jenny Holzer, Matazo Kayama, Olafur Eliasson, Andy Warhol, Ernust Fuchs, Ken Done, and David Hockney, having been created to date. Koons’ car is slated to be unveiled this Fall, and we can only hope it has giant Hulk hands welded to the side of it to clear passers-by out of the way as Jeff speeds through Manhattan on the way to Sotheby’s next big Contemporary sale…

Early aerodynamic tests indicate that Koons’ aesthetic additions indeed boost the car’s top speed while reducing drag…

View ALL of BMW’s art cars HERE…

Supertouch’s own SHEPARD FAIREY was arrested for alleged vandalism claims while attempting to enter the grand public opening of his first museum solo show at the INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON last nite. Currently he’s out on bail and awaiting a court appearance in Boston on Monday:

“A street artist famous for his red, white and blue “Hope” posters of President Obama was arrested in Boston, where he was wanted on warrants for tagging property with graffiti.

Shepard Fairey, 38, was arrested Friday night on his way to the Institute of Contemporary Art. Fairey was scheduled to deejay a kickoff event at the museum for his first-ever solo exhibition, called “Supply and Demand.”

Two warrants were issued for Fairey on Jan. 24 after police determined he’d tagged property in two locations with graffiti based on the Andre the Giant street art campaign from his early career, Boston Police Officer James Kenneally said Saturday.

Fairey, of Los Angeles, is scheduled to be arraigned on the misdemeanor charges Monday in Brighton District Court, said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk District Attorney. Wark said Fairey would also be arraigned on a default warrant related to a separate graffiti case in the Roxbury section of Boston.

Fairey has spent the last two weeks in the Boston area installing the ICA exhibit, giving public talks and creating outdoor art, including a 20-by-50 foot banner on the side of City Hall, according to a statement issued Saturday by the ICA.

The museum described the reason for Fairey’s arrest as “his efforts posting his art in various areas around the city.”

“We believe Shepard Fairey has made an important contribution in the history of art and to popular thinking about art and its role in society,” the statement said. “We are enthusiastic to be working with him and are pleased to be showing the first museum retrospective of his work.”

The museum said Fairey was released a few hours after his arrest, but that could not immediately be confirmed by authorities. A California lawyer who has represented Fairey in the copyright case didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the arrest.” Click HERE to continue reading…

After buying a new Banksy piece, Tim Biskup found time to make nice with the ladies…

The art “Extravaganza” event that was originally scheduled to take place at the now infamous LAZARIDES GALLERY in London last week during the throes of the FRIEZE ART FAIR was instead turned into the “Shut Down Show” after the local authorities canned STEVE LAZARIDES‘ original setup over gambling concerns. Turns out Laz’s grand plan to sell 250 tickets at £5,000 GBP each for the event—which guaranteed every participant a 1-in-10 chance of winning an original piece of art from the gallerist’s stable of artists including Miranda Donovan and Faile and included a raffle of an original BANKSY oil painting valued at more than £300,000 GBP—looked more like a mini casino operation to the gambling commission than a proper art show. Instead, Lazarides stepped to the plate and converted the original fete into an equally impressive group show of art by ANTHONY MICALLEF, INVADER, PAUL INSECT, and JONATHAN YEO, to name a few, that also included several vintage works by Banksy, including the “corrupted” oil painting that was to serve as the centerpiece of the raffle. While everyone who bought tickets for the original party was given a full refund and a piece of free artwork for their trouble, the new show did include a “Gnome Bowling” game whereby anyone knocking down a set of gnome bowling pins received a piece of free art, a less-than-subtle F.U. to the gambling commission if there ever was one. Of course, our man TIM BISKUP was on the scene to take in the spread, pick up on the ladies, and even DJ’d the afterparty side-by-side with Supertouch homie ACYDE at SoHo HOUSE where show attendees like DENNIS HOPPER tore it up late into the foggy eve. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

The rats in NYC keep getting bigger…

As we mentioned last week, BANKSY is indeed in Manhattan, this time for the opening of his self-funded mock pet store installation, titled “Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill,” and he’s spending big to post huge—and, yes, LEGAL—wall-sized murals around downtown to prove it. These two new installments—located at Houston & MacDougal and Canal Street near the Holland Tunnel—were again paid for by the deepening pockets of Sir Banksy himself, and executed by expert sign painters, COLOSSAL MEDIA, who just days prior installed the reigning street art king’s first two mega-rats. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

It used to be you could get this on any street corner on the Lower East Side for about $5 bucks…

Supertouch buddy/French street art sensation JR has gone big on the streets of NYC’s Lower East Side this week in visual preparation for the debut of English artstar-maker STEVE LAZARIDES‘ upcoming Beautiful-Losers battling “Outsiders” show opening this Friday, September 26th on the Bowery (more on this soon). Meanwhile, innocent New Yorkers can only stand idly by as the streets of their beloved Gotham are stormed by the French like a reverse Norman invasion, albeit with more wheatpaste and fewer bayonets…

Bye-bye bugle boy… 

As we reported earlier, immediately following BANKSY’s recent pre-Hurricane Ike art trip through NEW ORLEANS the newly-placed guerilla art installations stenciled onto the sides of vacant houses and abandoned buildings throughout the city’s Katrina-ravaged Lower 9th Ward began to disappear. Some have fallen prey to obvious treasure hunters (hopefully New Orleans residents who can actually put the money from sold Banksys back into the neighborhood), and others, ironically, have been erased by the so-called “Gray Ghost,” an anonymous New Orleans resident known for covering graffiti with gray paint that Banksy parodied in several of the recent installations. Regardless of who’s taken them, it’s only a matter of time till the doors and siding planks bearing the mark of the Bristol bad boy begin to make their way into the seemingly endless array of “street art” auctions of late. Following is a near-complete recap of the streetjacking to date. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »