The Modern Art Notes Podcast

This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Barry McGee, whose mid-career survey is on view at the Berkeley Art Museum through December 9.

McGee emerged over 20 years ago as a precocious tagger named Twist who left graffiti all over San Francisco. He took his visual language not so much from art history, but from other graffiti artists, comic books, traditional hobo markings and more, and used it all to take aim at the ownership of public space and the mostly corporate advertising that was increasingly filling that space in booming 1990s San Francisco.

Now after finishing with ‘Twist,’ McGee has emerged as an important figure in street-driven art. The BAM survey of McGee’s career was curated by director Lawrence Rinder and assistant curator Dena Beard. The show is open through December 9.

On the second segment. Jim Campbell joins me to talk about Exploded Views, the huge light installation he’s made for SFMOMA’s atrium lobby. (Check out this SFMOMA video and this Hosfelt Gallery slideshow-and-video instead.) The piece takes off from Campbell’s 2010 installation in New York’s Madison Square Park, Campbell’s first foray into representing a two dimensional moving image in three dimensions. 

Special request:The MAN Podcast is conducting its 2012 listener survey. If you could spend 3-5 minutes filling it out, it will make the show better and it will help keep the show free. Thanks much, I really appreciate it.

Download the show directly to your PC/mobile device. Subscribe to The MAN Podcast via iTunes, RSS. See images discussed on the show.

Image: Installation view of “Barry McGee,” on view at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Photo: Sibila Savage.