In Exit Through The Gift Shop, Banksy’s directorial debut, we meet Mister Brainwash.  A wonderfully confused tongue in cheek character creation that almost personifies the whoredom of street art in the commercial gallery world.

In that film, we see how a self-made rag man, applies similar techniques to the world of stencils.  On a mass scale ripping off the ideas of the movement and giving them several wee twists, but mainly that of a hefty cash tag.

photo credit: Biker Jun

Brainwash is hard to discern, a cipher used by some of the scenes chief wigs to highlight the scale of gullibility around the movement or a real person?   As cynical as it is – it’s certainly on point when you come across posts about rip off artists like this.

Rant on about street arts origins in the re-appropriation of cultural icons all you want, but there’s definitely a quality control and originality issue to say the least when an art movement starts cannibalising its own artefacts for quick bucks.