Barry McGee

September 09, 2013, 9:40am

Barry McGee at the ICA Boston

Barry McGee’s recent retrospective highlights a common dilemma in the rising popularity of bringing street art into museums and galleries—namely, how do you capture the ephemeral nature of the work and evoke its urban context in a white cube, and how does the message of the artwork change? The ICA show sought to confront these dilemmas, and the result was a show that revealed itself as an environment more than simply a survey. Replete with floor-to-ceiling wall installations, animatronic sculptures, and a massive totem of 130 television screens, the show drew heavily on McGee’s Bay Area roots and graffiti aesthetic. - Nadiah Fellah, NYC Contibutor (Visiting Boston!)

Barry McGee, Installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston