Theirry is by no definition an artist. He carries around a camera to document everything in his life, but then he never intends to do anything with the footage. He claims he is making a documentary on street artists, but he never really considers doing it until Banksy puts pressure on him to do so. Even then, it's a mess of images and sounds; nothing truly watchable. He is just as much an artist as a high school student with a camera at prom. The only difference here being the high school student will dwell on the pictures for a while and upload them on to at least five different social media websites, whereas Theirry will just shove the cassette in a box without so much as a label saying what's on the tape. Theirry as Mr. Brainwash is edging closer to being an artist, but he still misses the point by a long shot. He has ideas that are creative, but his ideas are all comprised of other artists' artwork with something small added to it. Additionally, he never actually creates his own work. He hired a bunch of workers so that he could tell them what they wanted and they could make it happen. I have to give him credit, though. He is definitely passionate. He spends his days going through books looking for ideas and makes sure they all get done. Not even a broken leg could stop him from telling others what to do for his show. The real MBW is the workers he has creating his work. They are altering the images and printing them in mass quantities. The artists going through the motions are the real MBW. MBW takes images like Warhol's Monroe, "American Gothic," Elvis with his guitar, etc. and distorts them into something different yet recognizable. One of the most common things was the Monroe image but with many different people's faces. This is something he saw Banksy do, but he took it another step further. Basically all of his "work" was like this. He saw someone else do it, so he took it a step further and made it common. Another piece he "created" was a large spray can made to look like the Campbell's soup can. Again, just copying something he's seen done, but with a slight twist. My favorite part of this entire documentary was when people would call Theirry asking for prices. He literally made them up off the top of his head starting around $20,000. He's never had real experience in any of what was going on around him, so he literally faked it until he made it. He's now making album covers for Madonna, and yet he came out of nowhere with no actual experience, even as a street artist like he was claiming to be.
Banksy was shocked, to say the least. He told Theirry to go have his own gallery exhibit basically to just get him out of his hair so Banksy could get a look at the tapes and try to make an actual documentary out of it. Banksy was not at all impressed with what Theirry took six months to put together - a mess of images that only looked sketchy. Banksy talked about how he thought Theirry was a little crazy. Theirry (with his minions) put together a show in about six months that was at least three times the size of Banksy's show, an actual street artist. It was all completely meaningless, and yet it still had people flocking to the opening to get an original print. Theirry made millions of dollars while that show was open. Banksy couldn't believe it.
Banksy's opinion of Warhol wasn't very high, as well. He owed a lot of his acceptance in the art world to Warhol, but he didn't consider him to be the artist people made him out to be. Banksy didn't believe Warhol's work is valuable. I do, however, believe Warhol to be an artist. He basically created pop culture. He was one of the first to take well-known images and distort them to be meaningless. Street artists, and people like Theirry, still copy him and his technique to this day. That is impressive. Everyone knows the name and the face when his work is mentioned. He did all his work on his own, using prints. Growing up in Pittsburgh right near the Warhol museum gives me respect for his work, but living among it makes me enjoy it. He paved the way for many artists after him, which makes him unique.
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