DOCSLIB.ORG

FROM DAVE EGGERS to BARRY Mcgee an Ongoing Series of Profiles, Where One Interesting Person Connects Us with Another

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
FROM DAVE EGGERS to BARRY Mcgee an Ongoing Series of Profiles, Where One Interesting Person Connects Us with Another CHAIN LINK PROFILE FROM DAVE EGGERS TO BARRY McGEE An ongoing series of profiles, where one interesting person connects us with another. Author Dave Eggers explains why he chose artist Barry McGee: “I’ve been following Barry’s work since he was a graffiti artist in San Francisco known as Twist. Then his work started appearing in galleries. Then museums. And every step of the way, he got better. With every new platform, every grand new stage he stepped onto, he nailed it, expanding his scope and broadening his range. He is a great draftsman, painter, colorist, and wit.” words chris a. smith photography carlos chavarría 61 CHAIN LINK PROFILE LIFE MIRRORS ART McGee has two studios, one warehouse space in the city and one at home for paper-based art and photos. As he puts it: “I like working so much that I don’t even like finishing. Does that make sense?” Barry McGee has been thinking a lot about I try to absorb it and take on that same spirit, on an old radio in the back. McGee’s work garbage lately. you know?” is everywhere—stuff from previous shows, It’s everywhere in San Francisco, in every It’s a rainy spring day, and I’m standing stuff that’s still percolating, paintings stack- possible permutation. Clothing scattered with McGee on his studio roof. Between ed against the tables and walls, paintings across the sidewalk as if its wearers had just storms, the sun is luminous behind the stacked in the bathroom. been raptured. Or, after the rains, a mattress clouds. McGee directs my attention to the On the floor sits a large work in pro- and a futon counterbalanced against a couch street. His Chevy Astro van is parked down gress, a mosaic of smaller pieces inside one to form a waterlogged ziggurat. Or a red there, stuffed with surfboards and papers, large frame. There are multi-hued, geometric warehouse door, tagged and painted over in but that’s not what he’s focused on. He points designs, some of which recall the visual black and then tagged again—this time in to a few old paint buckets, bright white illusions of optical art (op art), others the white—its surface a running argument over against the creeper vines on the freeway wall. rainbow fractals of a kaleidoscope. There are who, exactly, gets the last word. He likes the composition of the buckets, tries shout-outs to the 1980s graffiti writing crews As McGee sees it, there’s something of to imagine the trajectory that brought them in which he learned his craft: “DFW” (Down the sublime in this stuff. He encounters to their current resting place. for Whatever), rendered in bright, chunky plenty of it on the short commute from his He returns to these ideas frequently. letters. And there are some of McGee’s home to his studio, in the city’s Mission “How did this thing get here?” he asks. “It’s signature portraits, which combine precise District. The studio faces a two-story cement like it landed overnight. Sometimes I think draftsmanship with a slightly cartoonish wall covered with creeper vines. Highway 101 people are just setting it up for me. It’s like style: two views of a guy with burly sideburns, is just beyond. The freeway cuts off this aliens—if there were aliens arranging things, a couple of chins, and tired eyes—Bill section of the neighborhood, giving the place they’re doing it this way.” Clinton as a teamster, as I see it. an end-of-the-line vibe, the quiet broken only For decades now, McGee has been trying A few of the piece’s grids are still empty, by the ambient roar of traffic. It makes for an to translate his finds on the street into art, but McGee says it’s never been closer to irresistible dumping ground. in one way or another. The unseen, the un- completion. “It’s a 10-year commission,” he McGee, a 50-year-old artist and elder wanted, the ugly (at least by conventional says, then reconsiders. “Maybe a 12-year statesman of the graffiti world, takes an standards)—this all interests him greatly. commission.” Later, with a laugh: “Don’t tell anthropological view of the garbage. Let’s And at the moment, that means he’s on the him that it’s still not done.” say a wealthy newcomer moves in down the lookout for junk. By now, he figures he’s At this point, McGee is one of the street and remodels. Soon, the home’s old taken 40,000 photos of random crap, whether best-known artists of his generation. He’s door will appear on the sidewalk and, a few strewn on sidewalks or thrown down ravines exhibited at the Venice Biennale, and his days later, McGee will notice that it’s become or barfed across paint-splattered walls. “You work has shown at prestigious acronymed part of a homeless guy’s shack under the know how you just fill up iPhones with museums from SFMOMA to LACMA to freeway. Eventually, after the cops break up photos?” he asks. “Mine are of trash.” MOCAD. The New Yorker profiled him, and the encampment, he’ll spy a sliver of the old the Times’s style magazine showcased his door on the side of the road. — fashion aesthetic (a “no-frills” vintage-store “I’m interested in how things move McGee’s studio, a low-slung warehouse, is vibe, it decided, which seems accurate). along and have a life like that,” he says, his an amiable visual cacophony. Over the His images, meanwhile, adorn everything voice a whisper crossed with a murmur. doorway, a dozen-plus surfboards rise in a from drinking glasses to bike seats. If you McGee’s speech unspools slowly, full of tight and clearly not earthquake-proof stack skate, surf, or pay attention to “street oracular pauses and hunts for just the right toward the ceiling. More boards—some for culture,” as the marketers call it (McGee word. “All these forces are in effect, moving riding, some painted for his art—are winces at such terms), you’ve definitely seen things around, and there’s care and not-care. distributed liberally throughout the space. his work. His portraits—often men with That’s what I’m trying to get into more. Off to the right are two office-like rooms sad, baggy eyes, like skid-row Droopy I don’t know what that means to my art, but devoted mostly to art books; NPR burbles Dogs—are everywhere. 62 WORKS IN PROGRESS Opposite Panels on the floor of McGee’s studio: a patchwork of geometric patterns, kaleidoscope-type fractals, and his signature portraits. “When I look around here I know where everything’s headed,” he says. “It’s simmering. It’s kinda mapped, but certain things need attention at certain times. I know what’s on the way out. I know what’s coming in.” It all began with graffiti. McGee grew up the antithesis of contemporary art world to reconcile art and mammon. Grants and in South San Francisco, and one of his first slickness. The scene came to be called the gallery sales help keep him afloat just like any brushes with tagging came when he Mission School, after the San Francisco other artist. By virtue of his street cred, was nine or ten years old. On a family trip neighborhood. he can also tap into a network of sponsor- into the city, McGee has said, he saw an Things got big, fast. Huge crowds and ships, collaborations, and corporate one-offs image of a pig painted on a wall, accompanied massive hype, pitches from wanna-be-hip (RVCA, Adidas, Beats by Dre). A little backlash by the slogan “Fuck Cops.” He didn’t really companies, a starring role in a traveling exhi- is probably inevitable. A 2008 collabora- understand the message, but he knew bition with an indoor skate bowl. Fans often tion with Oakley sunglasses, for example, a deliberate provocation when he saw one. stole McGee’s pieces from his shows, which prompted online comments like “guy is a It impressed him. he found funny. Soon, due to both theft and walking contradiction. He has said he hates As McGee got older, the message began graffiti abatement, little of McGee’s work coprate [sic] america and the consumer to make sense. The Reagan era was an insur- remained in the wild. The only remaining nation we have become but he uses graffiti to rectionary time in San Francisco, and McGee pieces in San Francisco, he says, are buried sell adidas and oakley!?” McGee says he feels gravitated toward shit-stirrers of all stripes: deep in the subway tunnels, like a modern- good about most of his decisions, but trade- punks, skaters, surfers, and, of course, day Lascaux. offs come with the territory. “It’s always taggers. He was doing the fine-arts thing, While McGee still occasionally tags someone paying for something.” going to art school, but graffiti spoke to him. abandoned cars or couches bound for the McGee has also attempted to bridge the It was anti-authoritarian, anti-corporate; as dump, it’s been a long time since he mounted divide between the streets (where graffiti is Norman Mailer put it in a seminal 1974 essay a clandestine mission. He’s both too vandalism) and the galleries (where it’s art). on the subculture, graffiti was “the herald of famous and too old for that stuff, and his His methods tend toward the playfully some oncoming apocalypse less and less far continuing association with “youth culture” subversive.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 1 CONTEMPORARY ART and STREET CULTURE Members
    INSIDE Calendar of Events . 2 Wavelinks . 3 Beautiful Losers . 4 Free at the CAC . 6 2002–03 Annual Report . special insert Spring 2004 YOUR GUIDE TO WHAT’S HAPPENING AT THE CAC Glen E. Friedman, Tony Alva, 1977 CONTEMPORARY ART AND STREET CULTURE Members’ Opening Party March 12 1 for membership and other information visit www.ContemporaryArtsCenter.org Contemporary Art and Street Culture March 13–May 23, 2004 On occasion, in fact whenever an “inner quickening” demands it, New York-based artist Phil Frost paints with Pentel Correction Frost is a painter. He says he’s trying to urban life and street culture. Included are Fluid instead of paint. He once painted at night, chart an impulse—something he calls an “inner painters, sculptors, photographers, filmmakers, standing in a glass cage in a notorious San quickening.” Glyphic patterns repeat neatly, performance artists, graphic designers, illustra- Francisco neighborhood, while local residents marching across his canvasses before buckling tors and multimedia artists.The exhibition is smoked crack pipes around him and police and sliding wildly away; faces emerge, peeking organized in five sections: sirens howled through the streets. from stolen cartoon panels and then disappear One section is devoted to examining those “My painting is a culmination of where I am again, lost in the nightmare contours of paint artists who have had direct influence on the in a particular time or place, my relationship to and correction fluid. development of the generation of artists and the things around me, and my perception of He designs shoes too.And the shoeboxes designers that is the focus of the exhibition.
    [Show full text]
  • Energy That Is All Around
    Contact: Laurie Duke [email protected] or 212/998-6782 ENERGY THAT IS ALL AROUND Mission School: Chris Johanson, Margaret Kilgallen, Alicia McCarthy, Barry McGee, Ruby Neri Early 1990s works on view at NYU’s Grey Art Gallery April 15–July 12, 2014 New York City (February 28, 2014)—Presenting more than 125 works by five artists who launched their careers in a gritty San Francisco neighborhood in the early 1990s, ENERGY THAT IS ALL AROUND/Mission School is the first East Coast museum exhibition to highlight these artworks that have achieved cult-like status in the Bay Area and beyond. Most are never-before- seen early pieces from the artists’ own collections. On view at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery from April 15 to July 12, the show was curated by Natasha Boas and organized by the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), where Alicia McCarthy, Barry McGee, and Ruby Neri were students, and where they hung out with Margaret Kilgallen and Chris Johanson. ENERGY THAT IS ALL AROUND features paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations (including a number of the artists’ classic “cluster” pieces) alongside more recent works created especially for this exhibition. Also included is an extensive selection of ephemera, such as sketches, letters, journals, scrapbooks, and cut-outs. Johanson, Kilgallen, McCarthy, McGee, and Neri came into their own as young visual artists in San Francisco’s Mission District at a time when affordable housing and studio space was still available for those bucking the mainstream. The early 1990s also heralded a Bay Area dot-com boom, which brought an influx of young professionals, upscale shops, chic restaurants, and eviction threats to the Mission District, then a more diverse neighborhood offering cheap rent and food.
    [Show full text]
  • Barry Mcgee Opens Thursday January 4 from 6–8 Pm Exhibition Continues Through February 17, 2018
    PRESS RELEASE Barry McGee Opens Thursday January 4 from 6–8 pm Exhibition continues through February 17, 2018 Cheim & Read is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Barry McGee, which will open on January 4, 2018, and run through February 17, accompanied by a catalogue with essay by Katya Tylevich. This is the artist’s second show with the gallery. Barry McGee is an artist who takes uncertainty and unpredictability as his guiding principles. Every exhibition is different. He arranges paintings, drawings, sculptures, found objects, and works by other artists into freely improvised installations that roam across the walls, floors, and ceilings of an exhibition space. In the past, his installations have featured everything from robotic graffiti writers to entire shipping containers and automobiles. For his new show at Cheim & Read, McGee has assembled hundreds of artworks and objects into an installation that is at once boisterous and fluid. The gallery’s compact “dome room,” facing the entrance foyer, is outfitted with shelves and pedestals holding dozens of painted ceramics, including a totem-like stack of vessels covered in geometric patterns. Paintings on scrap wood, cardboard, and canvas hang on the walls or sit on the floor, while a spray-painted banner, reading “Do Your Part for the Resistance,” and an enormous black-and-white photograph dominate the upper portions of the space. The walls of the front section of the main gallery are covered with paintings featuring optical patterns, geometric shapes, and stylized heads, along with the occasional acronym — “THR” (“The Human Race” or “The Harsh Reality”) and “DFW” (“Down for Whatever”).
    [Show full text]
  • Marketing Urban Art: a Case Analysis of the Exchange Project
    Marketing Urban Art: A Case Analysis of the Exchange Project Submitted in partial fulfillment of the Master of Science degree in Arts Administration Philip Asbury Candidate for Master’s in Arts Administration Drexel University June 2009 i Table of Contents Section Page Abstract i Problem Statement 1 Literature and Background 3 Definitions 7 Procedure 10 Limitations 10 Body-Marketing Urban Art: The Exchange Project 12 Figure1: List of Participating Artists 18 Case Study: The Exchange Project and Tour 19 Summary 29 Conclusion 33 Bibliography 36 ii Abstract The Exchange is an interactive project that promotes a sharing of stylistic influences amongst a select group of urban artists. The project is web-based but it also mounted a four city tour in 2007. As scholarly research is very limited in the genre, this study was an attempt to gather the few existing sources, general information, and first hand knowledge of the author, a participant in the Exchange. The result is a look at the best practices in marketing urban art. The financial details of the Exchange were unable to be included. The author recommends that urban artists partner with organizations that share a similar mission and to focus on viral marketing. i Problem Statement Urban art is a new genre of art that is still in its developing stages. Though the market for urban art is growing rapidly, how to market urban art work has largely gone unstudied and undocumented. This study will document the Exchange, a collaborative visual art project involving 13 international “urban artists”. In this process, special attention will be focused on the marketing tools and strategies employed by the Exchange as well as their effectiveness.
    [Show full text]
  • Outsider(S) | 22.10.2019
    Auction on Tuesday 22nd October 2019, 7PM— 7, Rond-Point des Champs-Élysées - 75008 Paris RTCURIAL The Beautiful Losers Artists, 2004 D.R. Auction on Tuesday 22nd October 2019, 7PM— 7, Rond-Point des Champs-Élysées - 75008 Paris lot n°55, Chris Johanson, Hey Ron, 2002 (détail) p.68 lot n°87, Raymond Pettibon, Untitled (We want him…), 2003 (détail) p.000 lot n°55, Chris Johanson, Hey Ron, 2002 (détail) p.68 DÉPARTEMENTS DU XXe SIÈCLE Fabien Naudan Francis Briest Vice-président Commissaire-priseur Directeur des départements Président du conseil de du XXe s. surveillance et de stratégie Bruno Jaubert Hugues Sébilleau Arnaud Oliveux Aude de Vaucresson Karine Castagna Directeur Directeur Directeur Spécialiste Spécialiste Urban Art Impressionniste & Moderne Post-War & Contemporain Urban Art Post-War & Contemporain et Limited Edition Commissaire-priseur Belgique Capucine Tamboise Florent Wanecq Jessica Cavalero Sophie Cariguel Spécialiste junior Catalogueur Recherche et certificat Catalogueur Photographie Impressionniste & Moderne Impressionniste & Moderne Post-War & Contemporain Post-War & Contemporain Elodie Landais Vanessa Favre Salomé Pirson Alma Barthélemy Administrateur Administrateur Client & Business Assistante Impressionniste & Moderne Post-War & Contemporain Développement du Vice-président des départements du XXe siècle EUROPE Martin Guesnet Vinciane de Traux Emilie Volka Caroline Messensee Miriam Krohne Louise Gréther Directeur Europe Directeur Belgique Directeur Italie Directeur Autriche Directeur Allemagne Directeur Monaco Pour les
    [Show full text]
  • Early on the Morning I Went to See the San Francisco Artists Barry Mcgee
    A Ghost in the Family Dana Goodyear August 10, 2015 The New Yorker Early on the morning I went to see the San Francisco artists Barry McGee and Clare Rojas at their weekend place, in Marin County, a robin redbreast began hurling itself at a window in their living room. “It won’t stop,” Rojas said. She picked up a sculpture of a bird from the inside sill to warn it off. When that didn’t work, Rojas instructed her fourteen-year-old daughter, Asha, to cut out three paper birds, which she taped to the win- dow, as if to say: GO AWAY. “Can I let it in, Clare?” McGee asked gently. Absolutely not, Rojas answered. Thud. The bird hit the glass again, and their three dogs barked wildly. “I think it’s time to let it in,” McGee said. Rojas shook her head, smiled tightly, and said, “Maybe it’s Margaret.” It was 1999, and Rojas was newly graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design, when she first saw the work of the painter Margaret Kilgallen, who was thirty-one. It was at Deitch Projects, in SoHo. For the exhibit, a solo show called “To Friend + Foe,” Kilgallen had painted freehand on the gallery walls, in a flat, folk-art style, a pair of enormous brawling women, one wielding a broken bottle, the other with her fists up. At the time, Rojas was painting miniature dark-hearted fairy tales—girls in the woods with fierce animals—and, like many young painters, she was struck by the scale of Kilgallen’s work.
    [Show full text]
  • Zachery Lechtenberg and Aurélie Guillaume / Toni Greenbaum
    Tooning into Enamel Zachery Lechtenberg and Aurélie Guillaume by toni greenbaum zachery lechtenberg Fur All the Beat (brooch), 2015 copper, silver, steel, enamel 3 x 3 x 1 ⁄4" photo: zachery lechtenberg aurélie guillaume Tulipes et petit poils (brooch), 2015 enamel on copper, fine silver, sterling silver, powdercoat, stainless steel, micro glass beads 5 x 4 5 ⁄8 x 5 ⁄8" photo: anthony mclean zachery lechtenberg Rat / Oni (pins), 2016 copper, silver, steel, enamel 1 1 ⁄4 x 2 x 1 ⁄4"; 11 ⁄2 x 1 x 1 ⁄4" photo: zachery lechtenberg zachery lechtenberg Round Cluster (series) (brooches), 2015 copper, silver, steel, enamel diameter 2 1 ⁄2" each photo: zachery lechtenberg although working separately and in different enameling. They wish to make pieces that will last and countries, Zachery Lechtenberg and Aurélie Guillaume may be handed down through generations. share the same agenda of imbuing traditional enamelwork Lechtenberg encourages public interaction with his with fresh iconography. Lechtenberg is American, artworks; consequently, he pays careful attention to Guillaume Québécoise. They both make figurative enamel presentation, marketing, and distribution. For his 2015 jewelry: Lechtenberg in champlevé, Guillaume cloisonné. master’s thesis at East Carolina University, he designed and They are twenty-somethings empowered by the dissonant installed a “pop up” shop, replete with one-of-a-kind enamel vibe of the street. Contemporary, timely and edgy, they jewelry cradled within custom boxes, each one topped channel what some refer to as “skateboard culture” by an original drawing of the piece, along with T-shirts, through their graphic art—influenced by graffiti and skateboards, ashtrays, and stickers/slaps that also depicted cartoon imagery—to express the energy, color, animation, his personal iconography.
    [Show full text]
  • Before You Begin
    Before you begin... This resource is in presentation style, for use with Power Point or as a printed handout. It can be used as pre-visit preparation, to accompany a visit, or can stand alone. It consists of 2 parts: PART ONE: information, images and ideas for students - About the artist - About the work - Things to think about - Give your opinions - Here’s one I made earlier… - Further research PART TWO: notes for teachers - Learning Experiences - Useful links and additional resources BARRY MCGEE About the artist Barry McGee was born in San Francisco, United States of America, in 1966. He grew up in the Mission district of San Francisco and was heavily influenced by the life of the city and other artists working there. McGee is also known by the tag name “Twist”, which he chose when he started to do graffiti in 1984, at the age of eighteen. He studied painting and printmaking at San Francisco Art Institute. About the work McGee’s work explores the worlds of graffiti, street culture and urban life. He makes large installations which reflect the busy and chaotic nature of the city street inside the gallery. His work includes found objects which have often been discarded, such as old televisions or cars. These objects are combined, together with drawing and spray painting, to make installations which can occupy the entire gallery space. McGee often paints and draws directly onto the gallery walls, as well as painting brightly coloured, geometric patterns onto panels which cover the walls of the space. McGee’s work makes reference to the issue of private ownership in urban space, exploring the resistance to authority expressed by graffiti and protest.
    [Show full text]
  • Art in the Streets, MOCA, L.A
    Art in the Streets Patti Astor at her NYC Fun Gallery, hosting Keith Haring’s 1983 exhibition "Art in the Streets" at L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) was a controversial exhibition with works by more than 100 "artists," depicting this underground art genre. At the April 2011 exhibition press preview, MOCA's director Jeffrey Deitch (at that time) with co-curators Roger Gastman and Aaron Rose, compared the works to cubism, constructivism, Dadaism and surrealism, in its potential impact on the art world. The show was an enormous amalgam of graffiti, street art, murals, assemblage pieces, installations of decrepit graffiti filled streets, hip re-created bedrooms and galleries from the 1970's and 80's, displays of aerosol spray cans, numerous photographs of graffiti sprayed buildings, subway cars, bridges, photos of people who did the "artwork" and much more. The exhibition was filled with small to large graffiti pieces and massive installations - fascinating works that brought the viewer to places she/he might otherwise avoid. The art was displayed museum and salon style, in cogent, logical ways and with adequate signage, giving viewers a comprehensive understanding of graffiti and street art. Running throughout was a timeline of the evolution of the genre. There was also a display about a graffiti forerunner, railroad writings, going back to late 19th century. The exhibition demonstrated that several graffiti artists, Shepard Fairey, Bansky, Barry McGee, Mr. Cartoon, are producing works with form, color, harmony and aesthetic beauty. The show was also infused with dynamic youthful energy, with large swirling swaths of color and occasional in-your-face comments on the state of the world.
    [Show full text]
  • FERTILE GROUND: ART and COMMUNITY in CALIFORNIA TEACHER RESOURCES Cover and This Page: Odell Hussey Photography
    FERTILE GROUND: ART AND COMMUNITY IN CALIFORNIA TEACHER RESOURCES COVER AND THIS PAGE: Odell Hussey Photography ABOUT THE EXHIBITION 3 MURALS, PUBLIC ART, & ALLEGORY OF CALIFORNIA 4 GROUP f.64 6 POSTWAR AT THE CALIFORNIA SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS 8 A NEW ART DEPARTMENT AT UC DAVIS 10 THE MISSION SCENE 12 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 14 FERTILE GROUND TEACHER RESOURCES 3 ABOUT THE EXHIBITION The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) and the San Francisco • Patronage, Public Art, and Allegory of California (1930s) Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) combine their collections for • Postwar at the California School of Fine Arts (1940s–50s) the first time in Fertile Ground: Art and Community in California, an exhibition that illuminates local histories and social forces that changed • A New Art Department at UC Davis (1960s–70s) the face of art in—and beyond—the Golden State. • The Mission Scene (1990s–Today) Weaving together both museums’ holdings of California art and ephemera, the exhibition tells the stories of four creative communities Fertile Ground interweaves the histories and friendships of artists, active in the northern part of the state between the 1930s and the collectors, curators, and other individual and institutional collaborators present. In each case, the exhibition shines a spotlight on artists who against a backdrop of transformative social change. Viewed together, had their finger on the pulse of their time and the social conditions that the materials assembled present a rare opportunity to consider what allowed their ideas to flourish. catalyzed these four remarkable outpourings of creativity, social awareness, and arts patronage. The exhibition features an array of artworks and historical documents, from monumental paintings to handwritten letters, relating to four key moments in the history of California art: FERTILE GROUND TEACHER RESOURCES 4 MURALS, PUBLIC ART, & ALLEGORY OF CALIFORNIA ARTWORK SPOTLIGHT Frieda and Diego Rivera by Frida Kahlo 1931 oil on canvas 39.375 x 31 in Collection of SFMOMA, Albert M.
    [Show full text]
  • Barry Mcgee Hoss
    9.16.99 - 10.24.99 BARRY MCGEE HOSS Rice University Art Gallery The first work of Barry McG ee's t hat I reme mber is not one of his large-scale painting installations, or his tag Twist on the bac k of a street sign , but a small piece in a group show in New York . Trag icom ic f igure s with slack faces and stooped shoulders stood at the bottom edges of b lank, yellowed sheets of paper, and reappeared on cleaned -up liq uo r bot tl es. From anoth er group show, I remember a single work comprise d of fr amed draw ings, paintings, and photographs hung edge-to-edge to fo rm a hu ge cl ust er of image s. O nly upon leaving the gallery did I discover more eviden ce of M cGee's hand; a ti ny figure painted low down on the wall in a crack where so me p last er was m issing. It stood, a distinct if inconspicuous presence, unable to be co nt ained by the fo rma l arrangement on the wall . Such d etails , stowed away in co rners or out of t he normal sight line, are indicative of M cGe e's art istic wit, and how he sees p eop le or things the rest of us overlook . From th e tir ed eyes of his st reet peop le, t o McGee's own sense of self as a ro le mode l fo r kids who fee l empowe red by t heir name on a wall, McGee identifi es wit h, and cel ebr at es t hose aspec t s of life t hat have fallen into the cracks of cont empora ry urban Ame rica Barry came to Housto n fo r ten bru t ally hot Ju ly days; he wo rked in t he gallery during the afte rnoon , and in the coo l nigh t, rode his b ike t hrough city neighborhoods.
    [Show full text]
  • PRESS RELEASE Barry Mcgee
    PRESS RELEASE Barry McGee Opens Thursday September 12, 2013 from 6-8 pm Exhibition continues through October 26, 2013 Cheim & Read is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Barry McGee. This is the artist’s first solo show with the gallery. It will also be his first in New York in 8 years. Born in 1966, Barry McGee is arguably the most well-known and influential of the recent surge of artists from the Bay Area to have international success. He was raised in San Francisco, studied painting and printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute (graduating in 1991), and continues to live and work in the city. McGee’s boldly graphic, colorful work incorporates a multitude of influences (including, for example, graffiti, American folk art, and Op Art), but is most immediately evocative of the urban street culture from which he hails. Engaging the ways in which the city’s unique vernacular translates into artistic imagery, McGee celebrates the diversity, distinctive characters (one of his well-known motifs is a Untitled, 2013 acrylic on wood panel; 19 elements crawling, sad-sack bum), and neighborhood communities of the inner- 91 x 72 in 231.1 x 182.9 cm city. His work critiques consumerist culture and the constant backdrop of commercialism in everyday interactions; rejecting the billboard and chain store, McGee instead finds inspiration in the seeming randomness of graffiti, the endless uploading of images on the internet, and the creative styling of misfits. McGee’s work succeeds in its sensitive balance between anarchy and collaboration, resulting in environments which immerse the viewer in his singular, yet inclusive, vision.
    [Show full text]