- Barry McGee
Barry McGee (born 1966 in
San Francisco, California ) is a painter and graffiti artist. He is also known bymoniker s such as Ray Fong, Twist and further variations of Twist, such as Twister, Twisty, Twisto and others.Life and career
McGee graduated from
El Camino High School in South San Francisco,California . He later graduated from theSan Francisco Art Institute in 1991 with a concentration in painting and printmaking.McGee rose out of the
Mission School art movement andgraffiti boom in theSan Francisco Bay Area during the early nineties. His work draws heavily from a pessimistic view of the urban experience, which he describes as, "urban ills, overstimulations, frustrations, addictions & trying to maintain a level head under the constant bombardment of advertising". McGee's paintings are very iconic, with central figures dominating abstracted backgrounds of drips, patterns and color fields. He has also painted portraits of street characters on their own empty bottles ofliquor , painted flattened spray cans picked up at train yards and painted wrecked vehicles for art shows.McGee has had numerous shows in many kinds of galleries and was also an artist in residence at
inner-city McClymonds High School inOakland, California in the early 1990s.He was married to the artist
Margaret Kilgallen , who died of cancer in 2001. The couple has a daughter named Asha.The market value of his work rose considerably after 2001 as a result of his being included in the Venice Biennale and other major exhibitions. As a result, much of his San Francisco
street art has been scavenged or stolen. [http://www.sfbg.com/36/28/art_mission_school.html "The Mission school"] by Glen Helfand, "San Francisco Bay Guardian ", October 28, 2002.] [ [http://www.fecalface.com/news/2007/12/ "Twist Thief"] by Trippe, "Fecal Face" (website), December 13, 2007. (scroll down)]Exhibition of his work
Barry McGee "the Buddy System" exhibits at Deitch in NY. March 20, 1999 — April 24, 1999 [http://www.deitch.com/projects/sub.php?projId=104]
Barry McGee "HOSS" exhibits at Rice Gallery in Houston,Texas. From September 16 through October 24,1999 [http://www.ricegallery.org/new/exhibition/hoss.html]
McGee's work was included in the 2001
Venice Biennale . [http://www.villagevoice.com/art/0126,levin,25887,13.html]Barry McGee exhibits at Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco, CA - [http://www.gallerypauleanglim.com/mcgee_barry.html View Examples of Artwork]
Barry McGee LOFT installation at Roberts & Tilton Gallery Los Angeles, CA. Dec.2, 2006-Feb 3, 2007. [http://www.robertsandtilton.com]
Barry McGee solo exhibits at Watari-um Museum in Tokyo, Japan Jun 2nd -Sept 30, 2007. [http://www.watarium.co.jp/exhibition/0706_mcgee_en.html]
Barry McGee solo exhibits at BALTIC Centre in UK. January 21 -April 27, 2008. [http://www.balticmill.com/whatsOn/future/ExhibitionDetail.php?exhibID=93]
2008 "Life on Mars," the 2008 "Carnegie International" [http://blog.cmoa.org/CI08/2008/02/barry-mcgee.php]
Influence
McGee was highly influential on the urban art scene that followed in his wake. He popularized use of paint drips in urban-influenced
graphic design , as well as the gallery display technique of clustering paintings. These clustered compositions of pictures are based on similar installations he saw in Catholic churches whilst working in Brazil. He also was an early participant in the practice of painting directly on gallery walls, imitating the intrusive nature of graffiti.Controversy
McGee was involved in a controversy regarding the
Adidas Y1 HUF, a shoe for which he provided the artwork. This gave rise to a protest campaign by someAsian-American s who claimed that the picture on the shoe's tongue depicts aracist stereotype . McGee responded to the controversy in a March 2006 press release. [http://poplicks.com/2006/04/adidas-responds-finally.html] He stated that the drawing was a portrait of himself as an eight-year-old child. Barry McGee is half Chinese.In 2004, as part of an exhibit, McGee spray-painted "Smash the State" on the walls of San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzales's City Hall office (City Hall is a registered national landmark)." Lelchuk, I. cite web|url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/12/10/BAGGJA9B3S1.DTL|title="Last word on government: Graffiti installation in Gonzalez's office gets mixed reviews."|accessdate=2006-05-10 "San Francisco Chronicle" on the web,
10 December 2004 .] Gonzalez told the press that he knew his office would be repainted for the next occupant.Quotes
*"The more I learned about the art world, the more my interest in what was going on outside of it increased, I didn't have any desire to bring graffiti inside the school's walls or anything."
*"Compelling art to me is a name carved into a tree. Sometimes a rock soaring through a plate of glass can be the most beautiful, compelling work of art I have ever seen."
ee also
*Beautiful Losers
*Mission School
*Lowbrow (art movement) References
Further reading
* Barry McGee. 2002. "Barry McGee: The Buddy System". ISBN 0-9648530-3-5
* Barry McGee, Germano Celant, and Miuccia Prada. 2003. "Barry McGee". ISBN 88-87029-21-0
* Aaron Rose and Christian Strike (editors). 2004. "Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art and Street Culture". ISBN 1-891024-74-4External links
* [http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/mcgee/ Biography, interviews, essays, artwork images and video clips] from PBS series "" - Season 1 (2001).
* [http://retardriot.com/books/?p=65 Barry McGee in RETARD RIOT #16 w/ Noah Lyon & Mat Brinkman]
*Barry McGee is represented by [http://www.stuartshavemodernart.com Stuart Shave/Modern Art]
* [http://www.retardriot.com/paintings/?p=13 Barry McGee + Clare Rojas + Noah Lyon - mixed media collaboration - 2004 / 2007]
* [http://www.akrylic.com/articles/8/1/Barry-McGee-at-Fondazione-Prada/Contemporary-Magazine-September-2002.html A review of Barry McGee at Fondazione Prada]
* [http://www.hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/85/ "Barry McGee"] , "UCLAHammer Museum ", 2000.
* [http://shapingsf.ctyme.com/cgi-bin/library?e=d-000-00---0ssf--00-0-0--0prompt-10---4----dtx--0-1l--1-en-50---20-home-ilwu--00031-001-1-0utfZz-8-00&a=extlink&rl=1&href=http:%2f%2fart1$twist.html "Twist"] by Timothy W Drescher, "Shaping San Francisco Digital Library".
* [http://www.giantrobot.com/issues/issue09/twist/index.html "Trains and Trucks with a Twist of Pain"] by Eric Nakamura, "Giant Robot" #9, 1997
* [http://www.knowngallery.com/tag/barrymcgee "Barry McGee aka TWIST"] on [http://www.knowngallery.com "Known Gallery"]
* [http://www.stephart.com/barry.html "Barry McGee at Deitch Projects: or, WHY, BARRY, WHY???"] by Stephanie Lee Jackson.
* [http://3580.com/transit/transit_gallery.php?thumb=large&artist=twist Transit Project Twist gallery]
* [http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=%22barry+mcgee%22&m=text Barry McGee gallery] ,Flickr .
* [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/05/02/DD82982.DTL "Artist stays street savvy: Barry McGee's urban images reflect his tagger roots"] by Jesse Hamlin, "San Francisco Chronicle ", May 2, 2002.
* [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/10/28/DD264778.DTL "Yerba Buena art inspires calls to fire department"] by Kenneth Baker, "San Francisco Chronicle", October 28, 2003.
* [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/12/10/BAGGJA9B3S1.DTL "Last word on government: Graffiti installation in Gonzalez's office gets mixed reviews"] by Ilene Lelchuk, "San Francisco Chronicle", December 10, 2004.
* [http://charliesfactory.blogspot.com/2006/11/barry-mcgee-twist-interview.html "Twist (Barry Mcgee) Interview"] by Charlie Bucket, "Charlie's Factory", November 23, 2006 (original interview, 2000).
* [http://swindlemagazine.com/issue14/barry-mcgee/ Barry McGee; TWIST for SWINDLE Magazine (original interview 2006)
* [http://blackandwhiteprogram.com/interview/artists-of-the-55th-carnegie-international-barry-mcgee "Barry McGee Interview"] - An interview with Barry McGee about his life and exhibit in the Carnegie International.
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.