Barry McGee in ArtForum
The April issue of ArtForum has an article about Barry McGee, which notes how his body of work infiltrates both the street and the auction houses. The article recounts the numerous thefts that have occurred to Barry’s work from public commissions to museum installations, the early eBay sales which surpassed dealer prices, and how sales of his work through multiple channels defies the traditional art market:
Just as his works course through networks of display and exchange that circumvent normal transactions, the artist begins with a near-Cagean openness. He maintains his more illicit engagements while working informally with a group of dealers (rather than with just one or two), as well as with nonprofit and public spaces, seeming to appreciate the risk that the work can end up on eBay, in an abandoned building, or at Art Basel. As McGee says, “I like that something could potentially sell anywhere, at any given place. For better or worse, I used to like that chaotic nature of it, too. Someone could buy it from me, or on a street corner, or from Jeffrey [Deitch], or someone else.” That kind of expansive traffic “challenges the order of the art market,” says Deitch.
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