Barry McGee

Barry McGee (born 1966) is an American artist. He is known for graffiti art, and for being part of the Mission School art movement. McGee is credited as contributing to bringing urban art into high-end galleries.

As an graffiti artist, McGee is known by multiple monikers: Twist, Ray Fong, Bernon Vernon, and P.Kin. McGee graduated from El Camino High School in South San Francisco, California.

He attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where he graduated in 1991 with a concentration in painting and printmaking.

McGee was married to the artist Margaret Kilgallen in 1999, who later died of breast cancer in 2001. They have a daughter named Asha.

Later he was part of a group of young, San Francisco artists known as the Mission School

Installation, Xe Biennale de LyonMcGee's installations consist of simple bold paintings which are influenced by Islamic patterns on tiles, vernacular sign painting, or use caricatures of the destitute. These paintings are clustered together in combination with photographs of other graffiti writers. Older work included layering of shapes, and buff marks, backgrounds of drips painted directly on the gallery wall. He has painted stylized portraits on empty bottles of liquor, flattened spray cans, and wrecked vehicles for art shows. He has collaborated frequently with Amaze, allowing him to paint the exterior and interior of the galleries exhibiting McGee's work. They have also utilized realistic moving mechanical human figures that appear to be tagging gallery walls.

The market value of his work rose considerably after 2001 as a result of his being included in the Venice Biennale and other major exhibitions. As a result, much of his San Francisco street art has been scavenged or stolen.

Controversies In September 1999, a 64-foot-long, 8-foot-high mural made up of 300 pieces, made by Barry McGee and financially sponsored by the Luggage Store Gallery and the Creative Work Fund, was stolen off a vacant commercial building in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco. It was never recovered.

In 2004, as part of an exhibit at San Francisco's City Hall,

McGee was involved in a controversy regarding the Adidas Y1 HUF, a shoe for which he provided the artwork. This gave rise to a protest campaign by some Asian-Americans who claimed that the picture on the shoe's tongue depicts a racist stereotype. He stated that the drawing was a portrait of himself as an 8-year-old child.

Selected exhibitions

1999: The Buddy System, Deitch Gallery in New York City, NYC 1999: HOSS, Rice Gallery in Houston, TX 2001: with Todd James, and Stephen Powers, Venice Biennale 2004: Barry McGee and Josh Lazcano, Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco, CA 2004: Rose Art Museum 2006: Featured in Beautiful Losers exhibition at Circleculture Gallery in Berlin, Germany 2006–2007: LOFT installation at Roberts & Tilton Gallery in Los Angeles, CA 2007: Watari Museum of Contemporary Art 2008: Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art 2008: The Big Sad (With Clare Rojas), Riverside Art Museum 2008: Life on Mars Carnegie International 2008: Ratio 3 in San Francisco, CA 2009: McGee / Templeton / Pettibon exhibition curated by Aaron Rose at Circleculture Gallery in Berlin, Germany 2009–2010: Biennale de Lyon, France 2010: The Last Night (With HuskMitNavn), A.L.I.C.E. gallery in Brussels, Belgium 2012: Retrospective at the Berkeley Art Museum 2019: The Other Side, solo show, Perrotin Gallery, Hong Kong 2021: Fuzz Gathering, solo show, Galerie Perrotin, Paris 2022: Everyday Sunrise, solo show, Perrotin, Seoul 2024: Old Mystified, solo show, Berggruen, San Francisco