Jeffrey, could you give me the keys?

That was Barry McGee’s enthusiastic reaction when I showed him our gallery on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and North Orange Drive. It is a historic building, the former RCA Victor west coast recording studio. Many of the great musicians recorded there, from Miles Davis to Elvis and the Beach Boys. Barry could feel that the building resonated with cultural history and was excited about adding to it. I immediately said yes to Barry: Of course he could have the keys. He would be welcome to work in the space for several weeks, inviting artist friends to collaborate. As we did with our legendary shows with Barry in our New York gallery in the ‘90s, the gallery staff would leave them alone to work into the night, or all night, arriving the next morning and reacting with amazement upon seeing what had been created overnight. 

Barry made a remarkable impact on Los Angeles with his takeover of the former 99c store on Wilshire Boulevard last February. Barry’s exhibition at our gallery will build on the excitement that he brought to Los Angeles with that astonishing project. Barry’s show will embrace the dynamic energy of today’s Los Angeles underground culture.

I first became aware of Barry McGee’s work in the mid-1990s when the great Annie Philbin, who was then the Director of the Drawing Center around the corner from my SoHo gallery, invited Barry to have a show. I was fascinated listening to Annie tell me about the opening. She unlocked the doors at 6 PM, expecting the usual gallery crowd. To her amazement, the street was filled with dozens of young people with their skateboards. Barry was inspiring a new cohort of creative young people to connect with art. I loved the work and told Annie that I had to meet Barry. She told me, “good luck,” explaining that Barry did not carry a phone and never responded to letters. Some months later, an artist I knew was in an exhibition with Barry in St. Louis. She asked Barry if he might welcome a visit from me and he said sure. I immediately flew to St. Louis, where Barry was also participating in a graffiti jamboree. The visit with Barry led to three decades of exhibitions, books and projects culminating in Barry and his friends’ immersive Street Market installation in my Art in the Streets exhibition at MOCA in 2011. We have been in regular dialog since then, but this will be my first solo exhibition with Barry in more than twenty years.

Barry McGee began working on the streets of San Francisco as a teenager. He developed a unique artistic vocabulary that combines tagging, old master level drawing, and astonishing innovation in assemblage sculpture. Barry is one of the most original and among the most influential artists emerging from street culture since the New York OGs who invented Wild Style in the 1970s. Barry’s artistic vision emerges from the radical subcultures of San Francisco: Beat poetry, underground comix, punk music, skateboarding, surfing and a distinctive tradition of tagging. Barry also draws on the heritage of hobos who rode the freights, leaving their tags on the freight cars. Barry’s work resonates with humanity and empathy for the figures he portrays.

Barry McGee, aka Twist, Bernon Vernon, Ray Fong, etc., was born and lives in San Francisco. He goes surfing in the Pacific Ocean almost every day and navigates San Francisco mostly by bicycle.