The Art Intervention of Thierry Guetta
Thierry Guetta is an anomaly of the art world, as he is responsible for somehow putting himself in the center of the beginnings of the world of underground street art in L.A. and he documented it all with his camera. He is known nowadays by is pseudonym Mr. Brainwash, but before his status as a street art icon was set in stone he was first a French immigrant with a strange addiction to capturing every moment of his life on film. Literally, he carried a camera around with him everywhere he went. The film “Exit Through the Gift Shop” has a small portion where Thierry Guetta says his need to record his life stems from the loss of his mother at age 11 out of the blue and the fear that something like that may happen again and he won’t have the moments to keep. Whether its healthy or not, Guetta had a very strong personal motivation for the pure act of filming with no higher agenda. This attitude was perfect for the world of street art, a very secretive and anti-media/government movement. Guetta was able to convice everyone that he was filming that it was all for a documentary, when really it was just Guetta filming for the sake of filming.
Thierry first got into the filming of street artists through his cousin, prominant street artist Invader. This artist would craft tile recreations of enemies from the Space Invaders game for Atari and place them all around L.A. Through Invader’s success with these pieces, he was able to network with many other up and coming street artists like Shepard Fairey (guy who made obey signs), Poster Boy, Seizer, Neck Face, and many more. It was Thierry Guetta’s relationship with Shepard Fairey that would carry Guetta to all of these other artists. Fairey’s art was very straight forward and based on repetition. His most well known piece was a picture of Andre the Giants face in black in white obscurely stenciled over the word ‘OBEY’ in all red. This was entirely meaningless, but due to it being repeat so many times all over L.A. it had grown into a cultural phenomenon. Most people nowadays know someone or remember someone who wore Obey hats and shirts as they were everywhere, which clearly shows the power of Art Intervention on a street level. As all of this was happening, the legendary street artist known as Banksy was rising slowly in popularity in England.
As Guetta filmed all of the street artists he possibly could throughout America, the popularity and national attention of street artist Banksy continues to rise more and more. This really sated Guetta’s appetite with wanting to film Banksy, and one day the stars aligned and Banksy found himself in L.A. with no guide. When this happened, Banksy contacted Fairey, who then contacted Guetta. Guetta took this opportunity to film everything he could with Banksy while showing him around L.A., and Banksy liked him enough and was at a time where he realized the importance of preserving the film of what they did that he took Guetta with him back to Europe to film in Banksy’s home turf. This lead to many of Banksy’s most seminal works being captured on film and stored forever, many of which were works that destroyed within days of them being put up. One of the first ones he filmed was the “Murdered Phone Booth” which was a re-purposed phone booth with a pick axe stuck in the side of it. It is the capturing of moments like these that would lead to Banksy generous gratitude towards Guetta.
One day Banksy had the idea of strapping up a fake Guantanamo-bay prisoner to the fence of a roller coaster at Disney World, which led to Thierry Guetta being taken into interrogation by the Florida State police about what they were doing and the identity of Banksy. Guetta didn’t budge an inch and was able to destroy most of the tapes and hide the important one of the fake prisoner in his sock throughout the entire ordeal. This incident secured Banksy’s trust in Guetta and is why Banksy continued on to give Guetta his own platform for art later down the line. Now this next part is quite a bit of a tangent, but it’s a legitimate conspiracy theory against Thierry Guetta’s identity as a whole. There are many Banksy critiques that believe Thierry Guetta is an elaborate character created by Banksy to prank his audience and produce a film where he doesn’t have to be the feature (talking about the aforementioned film “Exit through the gift shop”). This theory doesn’t have a lot of basis other than the very apparent oddities of Guetta’s origins, his ability to afford anything while doing all of this, and people’s willingness to just accept and trust what he was doing the whole time. Banksy has stated multiple times the Guetta is a real person, but due to the nature of Banksy’s secretive image there is always a group of people who are going to question that claim.
Once street art blew up and became massive, Banksy thought it was now imperative to have Guetta create the documentary now. Only problem is, Guetta had no idea how to make film whatsoever and never even really intended to use to footage for anything. When Banksy realized this he was taken aback, but instead of casting Guetta out he opted to to Guetta’s valuable footage and create a documentary entitled “Exit Through the Gift Shop” where there is a detailed rise to fame of Thierry Guetta throughout the underground art scene. Though Guetta never actually participated in the art scene, he was imperative to its development and preserving. Thierry Guetta then used his endorsements from Banksy and Shepard Fairey to open his own art exhibit entitled “Life is Beautiful.” It was criticized for being basically a direct rip off of Banksy’s style, but due to his endorsement and the rampant popularity of the style at the time Guetta’s work sold like hot cakes a huge price of sometimes over 1 million dollars per piece. A lot of people saw this as Guetta betraying Banksy and Fairey, which was completely fair. Whatever the case may be, Thierry Guetta is definitely a sight to behold and a true art enigma.
In conclusion, Thierry Guetta was in the epicenter of the of the origins of American street art and was the sole documentor of the carious talents throughout the US. Whether is was Guetta merely being in the right place at the right time or true talent as a film man, Guetta made a large impact on the world of street art and it would not have been the same without him. His offerings to the world of art intervention are strange and idiosyncratic, yet there is a clear passion in what he does and it shows. As for why any of this exists, who knows. All I can see is a bunch of men who saw a lot of different opportunities at different times and a lot of passion to pass around.
Bibliography:
- Walker, Alissa. “Here’s Why the Banksy Movie Is a Banksy Prank.” Fast Company, Fast Company, 30 May 2014, www.fastcompany.com/1616365/heres-why-banksy-movie-banksy-prank.
- Hammond, Dereck. “Mr. Brainwash.” Artnet, 2020, www.artnet.com/artists/mr-brainwash/.
- D’Cruz, Jaimie, and Rhys Ifans. Exit through the Gift Shop. Producers Distribution Agency, 2010.
- Newman, Robert. “Mr. Brainwash: 10 Interesting Facts You Didn’t Know: Hamilton-Selway.” Hamilton, Hamilton Selway, 6 Nov. 2018, hamiltonselway.com/10-interesting-facts-mr-brainwash/.
- Frometa, RJ. “Is Banksy Mr Brainwash?” Vents Magazine, 25 Oct. 2019, ventsmagazine.com/2019/10/25/is-banksy-mr-brainwash/.
