Amaze

Barry McGee Mid-Career at ICA in Boston

April 10, 2013 Artists

The mid-career survey of artist Barry McGee opened last week at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston and the whole is in fact greater than the sum of its parts.

Looking at his productive timeline from the 80s as anti-establishment graffiti writer/tagger to art school student on residency to San Francisco “Mission School” originator to celebrated New York gallery star complete with large scale installations of dumpsters, vans and animatronic vandals, McGee has had quite a varied trajectory that will be difficult to summarize.

But as you simply look at the magnitude and variety of imperfect and quirky characters he presents throughout his career, it doesn’t surprise you when he ends this show with a community center. This is loner who continues to create community.

Barry McGee. Mid-career survey at ICA, Boston now on view (photo © Jaime Rojo)

You will want to see this show in its entirety if you are to glimpse just how wide McGee reaches for inclusiveness. Whether its the camaraderie of the love of the letterform, the 130 screen totem of graffiti culture video, the bulging and clustering of framed photos and hand drawings, or the bundle of clear glass bottles with portraits of street guys painted on them, each chapter can be seen as cobbling separate elements into a more clannish arrangement.

Like a living folk scrapbook, this non-digital one gathers the disparate relationships and experiences and emotions of a life into groupings, blending them with stories remembered, forgotten, imagined, fictional, funny, violent, and vocal – a rollicking life omni-bus that rolls onto its roof, laying still on the pavement, while you walk around and peer into the windows.

A look inside his jacket, with pockets for cans. Barry McGee. Mid-career survey at ICA, Boston now on view. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

During his talk before the official opening of the show Friday night, McGee gave his own take on the view of this sequentially laid out show path, telling the audience that he enters the gallery and looks down at the floor as he walks through most of the rooms, as if to say the that some of the trip is too difficult or painful to encounter. All the more interesting when he says the last room is his favorite. This is the one modeled on the concept of a community center and all its imperfect variety; a deliberately inclusive space with three vitrines reserved for local Boston artists to curate with ephemera about their lives intersecting with street culture. In fact, this is the room that feels more alive, less museum.

If you take your time through this survey, McGee introduces you to people along the road, along the rails, in boxcars, in gas stations, behind warehouses, under bridges, in delis, in ditches. In many ways, this is a story told by the street, captured by a pair of observing eyes. Look out for humor and humanity, augmented by rage and tomfoolery while peering into these stories . While the materials are multitudinous, it’s more than just miscellany and it’s made greater by way of the gathering.

Barry McGee. Mid-career survey at ICA, Boston now on view. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An animatronic tagger mechanically vandalizing the gallery. Barry McGee. Mid-career survey at ICA, Boston now on view. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

This interior room contains works by Margaret Kilgallen at the Barry McGee mid-career survey at ICA, Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Barry McGee. Mid-career survey at ICA, Boston now on view. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Barry McGee AKA Amaze and crew with a tribute to Oker behind Fenway Park in conjunction with his mid-career survey at ICA, Boston now on view until September 2. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Miami 2010: Tales of the Streets

December 6, 2010 Art Fair, Artists, Events, Florida, Miami, On the Street, Primary Flight

Welcome to Miami! Now go home.

– It’s a paraphrase of the Christmas crabby New Yorker who relies on the tourists who pump money into Broadway and Times Square restaurants and FAO and who actually eat those hot dogs and pretzels on the street. In the case of Miami, Art Basel 2010 draws to a close now and one billion dollars are estimated to have been transacted. When you pair that figure with the estimated 2-3000 artists participating, it looks like the artists must have made out rather well, right?

Certainly there were more Street Artists than ever attending the events and transforming walls everywhere with their work and creativity – at least in the unofficially sanctioned areas. At the moment Miami is “The only city in the US where graffiti appreciates property value,” ironically says Mint and Serf, a Street Art collective visiting the tropical city from frigid New York. In an odd twist on the “broken window theory” and urban blight, artists who are normally looking over their shoulder can actually wave to and talk with police who are driving by in some run-down areas where they are given free reign over large swaths of walls. At this sunny moment in time various agendas are intertwined and one wonders how long this golden age lasts.

Street Art photographer and observer Geoff Hargadon took in the breadth of the week on the street and attended a number of the events over the past weeks’ art orgies. He captured many jewels and quick moments with his camera and his 6^th sense, which are below. As various larger pieces are unfinished right now, we’ll be going back in a few weeks for a year-end overview.

In addition to an intuitive eye about the art trends happening that impact the scene, Geoff gives a commentary about what else he’s thinking about: “Here is the other thing that’s a trend: property owners have their hands over all these walls for artists to takeover, and then suddenly they are leased out to restaurants, coffee shops, and other businesses. It’s hard to know who’s playing whom here – maybe it’s a happy co-existence – but when does the property owner step up to support these guys in other ways? (Unless, of course, it’s already happening.) Either way, artists are playing a big role in the development of these neighborhoods, and whether they know it or not, as the area gets more developed and gentrified, they will eventually run themselves out of town. Whether they are getting paid or not, they are creating their own extinction in Miami.”

Aiko (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Amaze (photo and clever Photoshop © Geoff Hargadon)

Coco (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Gaia’s Hands (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Burning Candy Crew Members Tek33 and Dscreet at work on Dawn Of The Demon.(photo © Geoff Hargadon)

brooklyn-street-art-cash-for-your-warhol-miami-2010-web

Cash for your Warhol (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Invader (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

Lister in progress (photo © Geoff Hargadon)

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