Life is Beautiful
Featuring a wide variety of new, unseen material and serves as a retrospective on Mr. Brainwash’s career, thus far, It’s a WonderFul World follows his unique and captivating journey as an artist, from filming street artists to becoming a worldwide phenomenon. With personal pieces from Mr. Brainwash’s past, it includes never-before-seen photos from Mr. Brainwash’s time entrenched in the street art scene.
Mr. Brainwash has always been known for the large scale of his work. From his 80,000 square foot Los Angeles solo show in 2011 to a six-story tall Queen Elizabeth II, in her coronation attire, holding a Union Jack spray can, which was installed on the side of the Old Sorting Office in London. This book is no different. It is an exploration into the mind of one of this generation’s true art provocateurs.
The book is an eclectic mixture of art, photography, and inspiration. A project seven years in the making, this book reflects Mr. Brainwash’s style and how he has bridged the gap between this art and his life — becoming a living embodiment of his words and his art.
Mr. Brainwash is the moniker of filmmaker and street pop artist Thierry Guetta. Born in France and based in Los Angeles, Mr. Brainwash has been pushing pop culture’s envelope for almost a decade, bringing his art to the street, the gallery, and onscreen.
Armed with wheat paste, spray cans, brushes and paint buckets, Mr. Brainwash started attacking the streets in 2006 with stencils and posters of beloved icons from Billie Holiday to John Lennon. In Paris and Los Angeles, his work quickly caught the eyes of the public, and Mr. Brainwash had emerged from the underground, quickly becoming a renowned figure in the burgeoning street art scene.
Mr. Brainwash’s first solo show, Life is Beautiful, opened in the summer of 2008. Mounted in a former TV studio in Hollywood, it was the perfect place for the arrival of the art scene’s rambunctious new player. The show was so eagerly anticipated that it garnered the cover of LA Weekly, one of Los Angeles’s most circulated publications. Life is Beautiful opened with a tremendous thunder, attracting thousands of people who lined the streets for blocks. Featuring a 20-foot robot, a pyramid made of 20,000 books, and a life-size recreation of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, Life is Beautiful was an extremely successful debut. The show extended for three months, attracting a total of 50,000 visitors, and went on to become one of the most memorable solo shows in LA’s history. He lives in Los Angeles.
