Barry McGee

by Lucy Flint-Gohlke (Editor), Barry McGee (Artist), Raphaela Platow (Contributor)

In 2004, San Francisco street artist Barry McGee created a large-scale installation for The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. This artist's book is the only record of the project, which was dismantled at the end of the exhibition. McGee's graffiti markings first appeared under the tag name Twist in San Francisco in the 1980s. A formally trained artist, McGee draws on a variety of influences, ranging from Mexican muralist painting, San Francisco Beat poetry and pivotal artistic forefathers such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Philip Guston. Interwoven with his large-scale graphics and comic-strip works are found materials such as empty bottles, discarded syringes, old sheet metal and other fragments from the street, remade into sculptural installations. The artist's sad-eyed characters, painted as large-scale figures on the walls or as miniature versions on his found objects, voice the burden of deep existential uncertainty in a culture organized around economic and ethnic inequality. Limited stock available.

90 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2004