I'm Not An Artist, But...

By far the coolest part of my NYC experience was "stumbling" upon one of the most amazing art exhibitions that I have ever seen. I'm not an artist, but if I was I would want to be just like "Mr. Brainwash." I say that I stumbled upon this exhibit, but in fact I was searching for it all morning. Prior to my trip, this was recommend to me by one of my best friends, who told me that this was a "must see." My SIL and I set out in search for it, and for some reason could not find it's exact location (the problem seemed to be that we had absolutely no idea what we were looking for.) During our search we passed and old abandoned building that had Coldplay blaring from inside. The sign on the front said admission was free and my eye was immediately drawn to a giant picture of Kate Moss and a huge pink hear made of paint cans. I said to my SIL," if this isn't it, than we just hit some kind of pop art jackpot." Like moths to a flame, we immediately entered the wild and beautiful world of Mr. Brainwash. Here is what we saw. 

There were Rock Stars...

Supermodels...*

and Pop stars....

Madonna, Madonna, and more Madonna.

(really, is there such a thing as too much Madonna?.)

There were pictures created from broken records.

And a tribute to the king of pop, the late Michael Jackson. 

There were some great quotes painted on the walls. 

This one read, "if everyone thought the same, nothing would ever change!"

And this, "art is to make it exist."

There was a collage featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Art instead of war. 

And even Snoopy made an appearance. 

The coolest part had to be a true to size "matchbox car." Yes, that is a real New York taxi in this box. 

I looked up Mr. Brainwash in wikipedia and came up with the following:

Mr. Brainwash ("MBW") is a pseudonym for Thierry Guetta, a supposed French videographer, street artist and pop artist who is purported to be living in Los Angeles.

A brief narrative of Guetta's personal history, as well as the story of his introduction to the world of street art, are told in the 2010 film Exit Through The Gift Shop, which claims to include original footage of street artists at work, shot by Guetta over a period of eight years.  

The uniformly subversive artwork attributed to Guetta strongly emulates the styles and artistic concepts of other well-known street artists including Banksy and Shephard Fairey, both of whom supposedly collaborated with Guetta on Exit Through the Gift Shop. Like Banksy, Guetta employs famous and historic images, many of which are protected by copyright, and amends the originals in slight or significant ways to achieve an ironic and often politically or socially biting effect. However, while Banksy often transfers such images to other media, Guetta states in the film that his work largely consists of simply "scanning and photoshopping"..

Guetta's first show Life is Beautiful opened in Los Angeles June 18, 2008. The Mondriart Series was released in 2009 by the artist and features 7 different color options. In 2009, Guetta created the cover art for Madonna's Celebration album and on February 14, 2010, his second show ICONS opened in New York City.

If you live in the city or are planning a visit, and are a fan of pop culture, I can't recommend this free exhibit enough. It is located on north 13th between Washington and Greenwich street in the Meatpacking District.

File this under reason 1,000,000,001 of why I ♥ New York.

* I die for this picture of Kate Moss. At night I dream of it hanging over my staircase.