The Modern Art Notes Podcast

The Barry McGee mid-career survey organized by the Berkeley Art Museum has arrived at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. It’ll be on view through September 2.

Episode No. 44 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast featured a rare interview with Barry McGee. The artist emerged over 20 years ago as a precocious tagger named ‘Twist’ who left graffiti throughout the Bay Area. 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 now at the ICA was curated by director Lawrence Rinder and assistant curator Dena Beard. 

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

Image: Barry McGee, via BAMPFA’s Flickr stream. Photo by Styrous.

Street artist turned art-world-darling Barry McGee has just finished a new mural on the wall of the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn. This is a picture of it, via SFMOMA blogger Chris Cobb, who wrote a sharp little piece on it here.

McGee is the subject of a major survey exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum. It’s on view through December 9, at which point it will travel to the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston. 

He was a strikingly candid, open and honest guest on Episode No. 44 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast, even discussing how he got into a bit of trouble for tagging a part of the Berkeley Art Museum he wasn’t supposed to tag. (Oops.) Download it to your PC/mobile device. Subscribe via RSS, iTunes. See images of art discussed on the show.

It’s hard to imagine an exhibition could be more fun to ‘see’ online than the Barry McGee survey now at the Berkeley Art Museum. 

BAM has clearly gone out of its way to encourage visitors to take pictures, to post them online and to share their experiences of the show and related programming such as concerts. As a result of the museum’s efforts and McGee’s built-in audience, it’s pretty easy to surf away much of a day checking out images and more related to the show. 

Here are some good places to start: 

• The Berkeley Art Museum’s Flickr stream, which is a pretty great place for eyeballs to be right now;
• The Barry McGee Flickr group created by the museum so that visitors can share their own pictures. It’s at least as different from the museum’s own stream as you might expect;
• Tumblr’s own Barry McGee tag;and
• The most recent issue of San Francisco Arts Quarterly. If you’ve got other faves, drop me a note!

Barry McGee was my guest on Episode No. 44 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast. McGee does very few long-format interviews, so don’t miss 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: Barry McGee installation at BAMPFA, via BAMPFA’s McGee Flickr pool.

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. He cleans up nice.

McGee emerged over 20 years ago as a precocious tagger named ‘Twist’ who left graffiti throughout the Bay Area. 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.

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: Barry McGee, via BAMPFA’s Flickr stream. Photo by Styrous.

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 went above-and-beyond the call of artist-duty for the BAM show, including tagging the front doors of the museum. Which he wasn’t supposed to do. For which he got in some trouble (and will have to pay). We discussed that little transgression — and why McGee is both so excited about it and sorry for it — on this week’s show.

McGee emerged over 20 years ago as a precocious tagger named ‘Twist’ who left graffiti throughout the Bay Area. 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.

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: Styrous. 

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.

In researching this week’s show, I learned that there were ads for the BAM exhibition on many of San Francisco’s MUNI buses. I asked McGee, who has long been vehemently opposed to the intrusion of advertising in public spaces, what he thought of the ads. He chuckled, provided a don’t-miss explanation of his thoughts on the corporatization of public space, and then told me that he’d quietly put out the word that it would be OK with him if  the ads were tagged.

As you can see here (in images provided by a helpful tipster — click to expand), they have been… Check out MAN for more pix!

McGee emerged over 20 years ago as a precocious tagger named ‘Twist’ who left graffiti throughout the Bay Area. 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.

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.