Barry McGee, 2004
Thursday 28 October – 5 December 2004
Wednesday to Sunday, 11 - 5pm
Meat Market
42 Courtney Street, North Melbourne
Entering the Main hall of the historic 19th-century Meat Market through the confined space of the rear of an overturned truck, we struggle to take in the carnivalesque explosion of colour, cacophony of competing noise and the sheer volume of activity that assails us. Barry McGee, San-Francisco-based artist, has come to Melbourne. Visual anarchy reigns, and in the battle that ensues between McGee’s two worlds – the realm of the street (where graffiti remains a vibrant, political practice) and the more rarefied domain of the art world – the street definitely wins. This is not the case of a graffiti artist also making ‘fine art’; but of an artist who manages, by being astutely aware of his position within two vastly different worlds, to successfully use the language of a highly visible (and illegal) subculture to comment on the state of contemporary society.
While McGee’s ‘The Stars Were Aligned’ appears exciting and celebratory on first inspection, a darker, more melancholy tone reveals itself over time, as it becomes apparent that the excess of this installation reflects that of our own culture. The rubbish that exudes from the pyramid of trucks and vans in the centre of the space; the sad, hangdog expressions of McGee’s characteristic male faces that adorn the walls; the violent, desperate, home-video footage of L.A. street gangs that flickers intermittently from his tower of crappy TVs; and, perhaps most tellingly, the slogan ‘SMASH THE STATE’ that is emblazoned across the enormous, beaming face of US Vice-President Dick Cheney, bring the casualties of Western Society’s individualistic consumption-driven ideals into sharp focus. Yet by carefully balancing these ‘lessons’ with a sense of humanity, warmth and humour, Barry McGee shows us that all is not lost. The subtle markers of family in the installation (drawings on paper napkins by the artist’s father dot the walls of a makeshift shelter) and of the importance of and strength gained from community (even that of the street) serve to remind us that there are still things worth fighting for.
