By Jim Farber
"What is that?"
It's easy to imagine people asking each other this question when they encounter the wild-and-crazy Mr. Brainwash Art Museum in Beverly Hills, California. You can't miss it. It's the one with a fleet of full-size Matchbox cars mounted vertically on the wall. And it's just steps away from the glitter and glamour of Rodeo Drive.
Conceived by artist Thierry Guetta — better known by his street-cred moniker, Mr. Brainwash — the exhibit completely fills the former Museum of Television and Radio at the corner of Beverly Drive and Little Santa Monica Boulevard. Think of it as a museum fun house — a hallucinogenic labyrinth of close-encounter installations that pile art history pun on top of art history pun. Even the name of the exhibition, "Enter Through the Museum," is a pun on the title of Guetta's prize-winning 2010 documentary about bandit street artists, "Exit Through the Gift Shop."
Guetta was born in 1966 in Garges-les-Gonesse, France, a small, gritty, working-class suburb about half an hour outside Paris. In the late 1990s, when tagging (spray painting on almost any public surface) was becoming recognized as a hit-and-run art form, he traveled to Paris to visit his cousin — a street artist known as Space Invader. An obsessive videographer, Guetta became infatuated with the art and the artists of the street.
Initially he focused his video camera on his cousin's illicit work. Then he began to seek out other street artists to document, including Shepard Fairey, Zevs and the elusive, anonymous figure known as Banksy. As the seed of his alter ego, Mr. Brainwash, began to grow, so did his output as an artist. Its full flower is the Mr. Brainwash Art Museum, a creation that took months to assemble and install. FYI: Just be sure not to leave your sense of humor at the door.
When you enter the museum the first thing you see is the "Mona Lisa" hooded like a bank robber, a gag based on the fact that the painting was actually stolen from the Louvre in 1911 and again as a TikTok hoax in 2023.
From that point on you find yourself inside an "Alice Through the Looking Glass" world of wit and visual overload. And the amount of art history knowledge you bring with you makes the party even better. There's a life-size (selfie-heaven) replica of van Gogh's "Bedroom in Arles" and David Hockey's "Bigger Splash" reproduced swimming pool-size on the museum's roof. There's Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks," only the late-night denizens at the counter are van Gogh, Frida Kahlo and Superman.
The scale and intricacy of the installations is amazing: a dragon built out of books, a towering sculpture made from 1,000 used spray paint cans, van Gogh's sunflowers sprouting blooms by Andy Warhol, Banksy's chimpanzee in a corner watching the passing parade and an intergalactic gallery devoted to the characters from "Star Wars" — "May the art be with you."
The exhibit extends over three stories and the rooftop, and getting lost is half the fun since you never know what's waiting around the next bend. And while Guetta owes a lot to the influence and art of Banksy, his steal-from-everybody creations are less about barbed political and social commentary than offering up a put-a-smile-on-your-face lampoon of art, art history and art as commodity commercialism. Don't worry though, there's plenty to buy as you exit through the gift shop.
WHEN YOU GO
No closing date has been announced for the exhibition, and reserved time tickets are advisable. The hours are Wednesday through Saturday,1 to 6 p.m.: www.mrbrainwashartmuseum.com.
Jim Farber is a freelance writer. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
View Comments