Barry McGee has been described as a cult figure and an artist for everybody – an artist for the world. He is respected for his street presence, loved for his handstyles and characters, revered for his formal transitions, and admired as a prominent figure of the Mission School art movement in his home city of San Francisco during the 90s.
By the time the 90s had come to grace us with all the technological booms and tunes of that decade, McGee had made his effort getting up with fat caps and stainers in the often uncomfortably exciting and satisfying act of graffiti.
Now, in his 50s McGee would admit to you that he spends more time indoors than outside. He would also tell you that this is part of him scaling back, stepping aside, passing down the trade as others take over and he continues to explore a completely different practice.
The result? A manifesto-styled body of work that relates to communities around the world. McGee’s latest showing titled, ‘The Other Side’ hosted by Gallery Perrotin, Hong Kong comes as a debut partnership between the pair, as well as the first time McGee has exhibited in the East Asian country.
‘The Other Side’ is presented as an ongoing testament to McGee’s life mission, one that has long since caught the attention of galleries, museums, and collectors. On show until 9 November, Perrotin opened their doors on 10 October to an immersive and inclusive environment that lends insight into McGee’s perspective of the world.
On display is a range of various sized paintings, clustered and framed, while the rooms of the gallery are decorated accordingly with trademark motifs and the usual features of painted vintage surfboards, bottles and ceramics, guarded by wooden totems and piles of used television sets and other found objects.
Included is McGee’s iconic 3m x 9m installation, ‘boil’, an op-art experience created from hundreds of framed photographs and artworks that collectively ripple down the wall of the gallery, bulges in the bottom centre and tapers off on all sides.
In the past, McGee has admitted that it has to be the perfect storm for him to get out onto the streets, as he explained the difference between making graffiti outdoors and making art for display in a gallery.
To provide some understanding, he has expressed that he feels like graffiti is one of the last things that hasn’t been corrupted. It is in direct competition with corporate advertising and that, “There was always the presence of other people that were doing things, or living, or surviving somehow on the streets, or on the edges of the city,” – an oddly comforting sense of community.
Images: © Barry McGee; Courtesy of the artist, Perrotin, and Ratio 3, San Francisco
Barry McGee’s ‘The Other Side’ continues until Saturday, 9 November 2019 at Perrotin Hong Kong. Visit the gallery at 50 Connaught Road Central, 17th Floor, Hong Kong or visit their website here.