Graffiti News & Blog

It’s part of an edgy, energy-infused Carnegie International installation by Barry McGee, the San Francisco artist who has earned a national reputation within graffiti and gallery worlds. Featured recently in the applauded PBS series Art:21, he’ll be at the Carnegie tomorrow for a free evening that will include bands and videos in the Sculpture Courtyard (rain location Carnegie Music Hall).

McGee was born in 1966 in California and earned a bachelor’s of fine arts in painting and printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1991. But he had become part of the subterranean art world by his late teens where he was known by his tag name “Twist.”

His International piece is both playful and

pointed, a construct that skillfully dissolves lines between street and museum art, calling distinctions into question. McGee told Art:21 about hearing the same people at a gallery reception praise his work and then walk outside and disparage street graffiti, calling for its erasure. “And it’d be my tag. I like that; that’s funny to me.”

Politically, he challenges mainstream thinking about public space and access to it, particularly by commercial vs. individual interests. “The billboards are very subversive, and advertising is very subversive, whereas most of the stuff that’s done on the street is very close to the truth.”

The evening begins at 8:30 p.m. with a conversation between McGee and Douglas Fogle, Carnegie International curator, about the artist’s work and his response to the exhibition’s title, “Life on Mars.”

Following will be bands Japanther (Brooklyn-based noise-rock), Extreme Animals (Pittsburgh/San Diego party dance band for Paper Rad) and Pittsburgh’s Centipede E’est. DJs Edgar Um and Cutups, and videos by Paper Rad, will keep the night moving.

Information: 412-622-3131; or www.cmoa.org.