Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Barry McGee and Todd James Collaborate on New Works in “FUD”

V1 Gallery in Copenhagen is currently hosting a two men show featuring Barry McGee and Todd James. Ever since they created "Street Market" together with Steve Powers at New York City's Deitch Projects in 2000, the two have exhibited together several times. Among others, they exhibited at the 2001 Venice Biennale, 2004 "Beautiful Losers" group exhibition, and the L.A. MOCA "Art in the Streets" in 2011. V1 Gallery has been supporting both artists through that entire time, and "FUD" is their second double-show with the gallery. Read more after the jump.

V1 Gallery in Copenhagen is currently hosting a two men show featuring Barry McGee and Todd James. Ever since they created “Street Market” together with Steve Powers at New York City’s Deitch Projects in 2000, the two have exhibited together several times. Among others, they exhibited at the 2001 Venice Biennale, 2004 “Beautiful Losers” group exhibition, and the L.A. MOCA “Art in the Streets” in 2011. V1 Gallery has been supporting both artists through that entire time, and “FUD” is their second double-show with the gallery.

The title of the show is borrowed from a random word that James has been using in his comics. Though it sounds like an acronym, or even a name of a graffiti crew, the closest explanation would be the sound of something heavy dropping on the ground. This non-serious and fun-loving approach to exhibiting art is what both artists are known for. Though coming from opposite sides from US, they are both having strong connections with graffiti culture and the life on the streets. While McGee is still active in that field, James is more focused on his art and numerous side projects he’s been working on. The idea of both artists was to organize, or disorganize a collaborative installation showing their distinct, bold and iconic visual languages. This resulted in a sort of visual punk created with works that understand and celebrate the outsiders and marginal characters, but also criticize consumerism culture.

Using found objects, old surfboards, vintage TV, broken safe box, Barry McGee is pointing at the beauty in anarchy and autonomy. Though showing at museums and being exhibited at major art events worldwide, the works have this human, imperfect feel to them which adds to their beauty. By mixing and juxtaposing geometrical patterns and shapes against his recognizable characters, the pieces always carry an unmistakable, playful feel to them. The pieces, interventions and installations prepared for this show are no exception to that.

Though significantly different, the aesthetics of Todd James’ works are also highly recognizable. Through the years of writing graffiti, drawing cartoons, painting, sketching, designing puppets, animations, etc, the NY-based artist created a minimalist visual language through which he is showing his vision of the world. Using bright primary colors, raw shapes and hardly any outlines, his paintings feel very atmospheric and often engaged. For this particular show, he painted couple of works that are showing female characters enjoying a leisure lifestyle, often incorporating some fantasy elements in them. The main piece he painted for FUD is a totem-like, almost abstract painting inspired by the late NYC legend, Rammellzee.

Along with works by these two artists, the gallery is showing a small and intimate group show of their friends, including Khashayar, Magnus Vind, Ebitso, Julien Couic, Alicia McCarthy, Pablo Pinho and Derek Marshall.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Multimedia artist Magnus Gjoen has a signature way of combining grim imagery with classically inspired techniques. We recently featured his series of war weapons made to look like delicate 16th century blue and white porcelain. Can something so horrific also be considered beautiful? This is a central theme of Gjoen's upcoming solo exhibition "Monster", opening March 20th at Hang Up gallery in London. He began working on the show after reading an FBI article about a real-life monster, a serial killer who fantasized about children. In newly abstract illustrations, Gjoen seeks to reveal the killer's beautifully disturbed psyche.
Barcelona based illustrator Joan Cornellà admits that he's had an unusual imagination since his early childhood. Labeled as the "king of absurd", though colorful and playful on the outside, his artwork intentionally oversteps boundaries on topics of race, gender, drugs, and every social taboo imaginable. His images are populated by funny and always happy figures that live in a twisted world of happiness, he says, and they have no time to be politically correct.
Carl Krull's drawings have a visceral appeal. Each of his works is composed of horizontal lines that start out parallel and wrinkle somewhere in the middle, yielding figures as if out of some primordial mass. Sometimes the forms he draws are hardly distinguishable from one other. The eye attempts to untangle his orgiastic cacophony of limbs and biomorphic shapes as if they were some strange riddle. On September 27, Krull debuted his solo show "Seismic" at V1 Gallery in Copenhagen. The pieces evoke both the smooth grooves of cliff sides and the monochromatic markings of seismographs. By setting restrictions on his process (he seems to refuse to take the charcoal off the paper until it has crossed from one side to the other), Krull captures the quality of geological formations and invokes themes of creation and mythology.
Last year, Portland based artist Peter Gronquist made a remarkable departure from his dramatic taxidermy sculptures in favor of more abstract explorations. He continues to experiment with color and form in his latest body of work for "All of the Above", opening on Saturday at Soze Gallery in Los Angeles. The show expands on his 2014 exhibition "The Great Escape" which featured infinity boxes of holographic war planes and firearms, a recurring motif in Gronquist's art.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List