The Aldrich Experience Raffle
Works on Paper Collection

Barry McGee
Untitled, 1999
Courtesy Rebecca and Martin Eisenberg

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Barry McGee’s work has been seen at The Aldrich in Bottle: Contemporary Art and Vernacular Tradition (2003) and Best of the Season: Selected Work from the 1998-99 Manhattan Exhibition Season (1999).

A lauded and much-respected cult figure in a bi-coastal subculture that comprises skaters, graffiti artists, and West Coast surfers, Barry McGee was born in 1966 in California, where he continues to live and work. In 1991 he received a BFA in painting and printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute. 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, tagged signs, wrenches, and scrap wood or metal. Also a graffiti artist, he is known on the streets of America's cities by the tag name “Twist.” He views graffiti as a vital method of communication, one that keeps him in touch with a larger, more diverse audience than can be reached through the traditional spaces of a gallery or museum. His work has been shown at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the UCLA/Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and on streets and trains all over the US.