Some more seemingly heart warming pieces of information from Ron English, on Brainwash and the 'real' reason he was 'allowed' close to Shep and Banksy, even a few years back it was about working within the system, more found here
'The only glaring detail that they leave out that helps you understand the story is that Thierry is like a billionaire, a very wealthy guy. He doesn't come off as wealthy. His family are some kind of merchants from France, and when he was 17 years old he met with his financial advisor and told him that he wanted to move to the United States. His financial advisor says "It's very hard to immigrate to the United States, but it's a lot less hard if you own a bunch of property in the United States." So the family bought a bunch of buildings up and down Melrose and some other really prime real estate in Los Angeles.'
'The artists all tolerated him because he hooked you up, when you went to LA, the first thing people told you is "You have to meet this guy Thierry because he's got all the main spaces, all the best walls, and you can do something without getting arrested." '
He has some property it's true. Not sure if he's quite as mega-wealthy as all that though. I reckon a big part of why Banksy created Brainwash as a street artist was to use him as a human shield. Because the time came when it became useful for him to have someone out there who was even more blatantly a vapid plagiarist who is only in it for the money than he is.
ReplyDeleteIt managed to neatly to take all the criticism off of himself regarding the increasing commercialisation of street art by giving everyone an easy target to aim at. It's ultimately all just another disposable Banksy front organisation that serves a purpose. Vandalog (A.K.A Pavlov's dog) and all the usual muppets fell right into the trap laid for them of course.
So... Am I supposed to like him or what? Who should I like in street art? Or is everybody a big pile of wank? So many questions, so little.. Fuck it, I'm off down the pub!
ReplyDeleteYou should like everybody in street art. You should also wear a trucker cap and a check shirt while hanging out at gallery openings and saying 'dope, rad, sick, awesome, dude' as many times as you possibly can.
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