Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara is pleased to present a solo exhibition by San Francisco-based artist Barry McGee, opening June 30, 2018. The exhibition will feature a sprawling installation of paintings, drawings, and sculptural objects ranging from vessels to surfboards, including new work created specifically for the space at MCASB. McGee embraces improvisation as a guiding principle, finding a balance between chaos and meticulous attention to detail. Constellations and groupings of drawings and sculptures will be juxtaposed against found objects, ephemera, and works by other artists.
In the past, his installations have featured everything from robotic graffiti writers to entire shipping containers and automobiles. While McGee’s exhibitions have taken many different forms, each is marked by the artist’s characteristically immersive environments and a subtle, yet deft responsiveness to their geographic and social context. As with previous exhibitions, McGee’s installation at MCASB will reflect the surrounding environment and particular histories of the region; references to Santa Barbara’s past and cultural oddities like the The Reagan Ranch Center will inform this dynamic exhibition.
Accompanying the exhibition will be a pop-up shop collaboration with Scooters for Peace as well as a Barry McGee limited edition. A full list of programs and events related to the exhibition will be released in the days leading up to the exhibition opening.
About the Artist
Barry McGee is an artist who takes uncertainty and unpredictability as his guiding principles. Every exhibition is different. He arranges paintings, drawings, sculptures, found objects, and works by other artists into freely improvised installations that roam across the walls, floors, and ceilings of an exhibition space. A native of San Francisco, McGee studied painting and printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute, graduating in 1991. He became a leading figure in the 1990s movement known as the Mission School, after the city’s celebrated Mission District. He has shown extensively, both nationally and internationally, with solo exhibitions at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Fondazione Prada, Milan; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Rose Art Museum, Waltham, Massachusetts; the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny Castle, Ireland; the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, England, among others. McGee’s work was included in the 2001 Venice Biennale, the 2008 Carnegie International, and the 2009–2010 Biennale de Lyon, France. His retrospective opened in 2012 at the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, California, and traveled to the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Boston, Massachusetts.
Image: Barry McGee, Untitled, 2017, Acrylic and gouache on panel, 5 elements, 36.5 x 32.5 x 1.75 in., Courtesy Ratio 3, San Francisco, and Cheim & Read, New York.
