Cherry Picking is a chaotic cluster-fuck of a million paintings, drawings & sculptures crammed into a basement! Not simply his work but invited friends, family & some of his own personally collected treasures.
Of course, I liked all of Barry’s works in "Cherry Picking" but most interesting & exciting was the curation of other artists' works. Partly from Barry's own collection of family & close friend's works, including random photography, lots of ephemera, including his dad’s drawings on napkins, fruit stand signage, & tagged NO PARKING signs.
Todd James, Margaret Kilgallen, Barrys' father's drawings, ORFN, Mark Gonzales, Noah Lyon, Chris Johanson,
But also some younger NYC stuff, presumably curated by Tomas, Homesick & the Village Works community. (At some point I do want to write more about VILLAGE WORKS as it’s such an interesting bookshop that one would say could not exist in Manhattan in 2025 but it does.)
Also friends of Barry's invited their friends too. Erik Foss, Greg Lamarche.
Barry is an anomaly, respected and collected in the fine art blue-chip world while simultaneously revered and loved in the graffiti one. The only other artists that come to mind who have such distinct and divided audiences are BANKSY and INVADER, whose young lives were similarly immersed in punk rock, which likely contributed to their socialist leanings."
You only need to throw "Barry McGee" into the search bar here to know what a fanboy I am. My admiration for him may have started in 1997 when first discovered his art but over the 16 years that I've been in touch with him, I’ve grown to respect him as an incredible & unusual person.
He supports so many artists in lots of different ways and has also been incredibly generous with his art, time, and energy for my own projects. First, in 2008, designing his own double-page spread for my debut book, STICKERS: from Punk Rock to Contemporary Art, & he let me include a peel-out sticker in the back of the book.
More recently, he helped create the ridiculous deluxe edition of STICKERS Vol 2, where he tagged or hand-embellished 200 individual sticker sheets!
He’s even just worked with my son to produce a super limited zine, only available through Max’s SAP Magazine site.
Like me, he loves all things analog, is obsessed with niche subcultures from the pre-internet past, and seriously dislikes much of the modern world, but unlike me, he is able to not engage with many aspects of it. He has zero social media.
I don’t know exactly how he discovered or connected with Joseph Sheridan & the Village Works book shop, I’m guessing it may have been through ex SF transplant, Tomas Marcelelno, a talented young artist who’s been working at the shop & doing projects with the HOMESICK twins.
Regardless, Barry fell in love with the whole Village Works vibe, as it is truly a testament to another era. He offered to do a little group show there last month. I believe that led to him & Kathy Greyson of The Hole Gallery planning an expanded version of the same idea.