AARON ROSE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
Hi, I'm Aaron Rose.
Barry McGee is a San Francisco-based artist.
His drawings, paintings, and mixed media installations take
their inspiration from contemporary urban culture,
incorporating elements such as empty liquor bottles and spray
paint cans, found wood and scrap metal.
His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Walker
Arts Center in Minneapolis, the Prada Foundation in Milan,
Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum, and the Watari Museum
of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.
We sat down with him recently for this rare interview.
In recent years, your work has become much more conceptual.
[ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYING]
AARON ROSE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
The geometric panels, for example.
Where does the inspiration for the
geometric/conceptual work come from?
BARRY MCGEE: [SPANISH-ACCENTED SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
I became bored of the faces and imagery.
I had been waiting for my encounter with
abstraction for some time.
It was very slow coming.
It was and is a slow-motion car crash for me.
I'm still spinning out, waiting for
impact, to some degree.
AARON ROSE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
What is it about San Francisco that interests you?
BARRY MCGEE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
Well, there really is no city like San Francisco.
There are so many different economies running right up
against each other.
It has changed quite a bit in the last 10 years.
But somehow, it still retains a solid population of freaks
and anarchists.
What can be better than an aging transvestite anarchist?
AARON ROSE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
Do you think the city has had an influence on you?
BARRY MCGEE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
Yes, it has.
But I'm starting to let other environments slip in also.
AARON ROSE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
McGee is also a graffiti artist working on the streets
since the 1980s, where he is known by the tag name Twist.
His trademark icon, a caricatured male figure with
sagging eyes and a bemused expression, recalls the
homeless people and transients who call the
streets their home.
It communicates the artist's strong empathy with people who
have been left behind by contemporary society.
Rather than being another graffiti artist who does
things in galleries, I've always considered your work to
be much more about the history of graffiti.
Would you agree?
BARRY MCGEE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
Well, there is a great history of graffiti
and graffiti writers.
I only take part in a small blip in the scale of things.
Galleries are boring.
You know that, Aaron.
That's why there is so much graffiti on the streets.
This trend of graffiti in galleries will pass, and
something truly more horrific will replace it.
All artists: Please get back in the
safety of the galleries.
AARON ROSE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
What is the difference for you in working at a gallery, in a
museum, or on the street?
BARRY MCGEE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
One is boring.
One isn't.
AARON ROSE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
What do you think about the art world?
BARRY MCGEE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
It is really great.
The energy is really good, with lots of fresh young
upstarts moving in every month.
How else would we have met, Aaron?
AARON ROSE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
Destruction seems to be a common thread in your work.
What is it about chaos that inspires you and your artwork?
BARRY MCGEE: [SYNTHESIZED VOICE]
It takes a lot of work to destroy something.
I've worked the last 25 years building, day in, day out.
They painted over everything I built.
Even my oldest rooftop graffiti masterpiece from the
late '80s is gone.
Destruction is all around us.
They can't destroy me.
I've only just begun.