Miami police have been seizing street artist Mr. Brainwash’s ubiquitous cutouts of stormtroopers with guns that he’s placed all over the city for Art Basel.
Brainwash — a k a Thierry Guetta, who grew to fame after starring in the Banksy-directed documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop” — has installed 1,000 human-size artworks around town, but some placed on a local highway caused concern.
A source said, “Dozens of Mr. Brainwash’s life-size iconic stormtroopers have been removed by police from the 195 Causeway.”
Guetta told Page Six, “I had a group of 20 kids putting my ‘Stormtroopers’ all over town. The idea is that they are all over the city protecting Miami. I hadn’t heard of the police taking them, but a lot of other people have been stealing them, too, and taking pictures with them in their homes. My view is that once the art is out there, it isn’t mine any longer, it is there for everybody to use. I am in this world to try to make it better. I have no idea what the police would do with my [work], hopefully they won’t use them for shooting practice.”
A Florida Highway Patrol rep said they had no knowledge of the artworks being seized. Guetta’s also doing an exhibition at the Riviera Hotel, where he’s creating large-scale paintings inside and outside the property. He added that he’s next coming to New York for a “top secret project.” The NYPD’s property clerk division has in custody the final work Banksy put up during his October residency here.