Barry McGee

Rating:
Summary: UNTOUCHABLE BOOK
Review: BY A MILE the best book to date that show cases Barry Mcgee's work. The book is SUPER thick, Pictures are in color, quality of the pictures is incredible. Barry Mcgee raises the bar when it comes to putting out a book. The book is worth every penny. I liked it so much I bought 2, one for me, and one for my girlfriend. CANT GO WRONG WITH THIS BOOK!

Rating:
Summary: Great Book, best source for McGee art Career....
Review: This is a great Book. I find it to be THE book to have concerning Barry McGee's art career thus far. I have seen all of his other catalogs and this one is by far the most complete. Barry McGee has one other catalog entitled Hoss from a show in 1999, this is a small catalog, but there is an interview that is more truthful than the one in this publication. All in all I would say that this is a great Book, highly recommended!!

Rating:
Summary: Lot of Pages, Not Enough Art
Review: This is easily the longest book on Barry McGee at 300+ pages and it's also in color so two stars for that. Unfortunately, most of the pages are filled with photos of streets, graffiti, and wide views of installations. Because of the small size of the book (6 x 9) it's hard to see much detail of the actual artwork. Some of the pages reproduce the art as a full page, but most are photographs of the scenerey. The book cover shows off the artwork nicely, but there are only a dozen or so "art" pages. This definitely shows the locations where McGee's art appears, but it's hard to make out the art. This is not really an 'art book' with full page reproductions of artwork, but more of a chronicle of McGee, photographs of locations, photos of people, photos of installations. You can say that the locations are a part of the art but when you want to see a closeup shot of a bottle with a painted face on it you'll be disappointed. All of the books on McGee suffer in really showing of the painting/illustrations McGee Does because they all take the documentary approach in showing photos of locations with McGee art. But the photos are snap-shot quality and the painted art is secondary.

Rating:
Summary: this works
Review: Yes this is the heaviest book of mcgee's thus far. weight wise, content wise. At least image wise that is. Beautiful, excessive, kinda small in size like a big fat sketch book. This might lend itself to the distacted variable ethos of the street, where the work has a short shelf life and an even shorter period in which to engage the viewer.
Yes, you should probably own this book, if you like McGee's work. With the scattershot approach and the distracted view already available prevalent and so expected in viewing public graff the scrap book approach and the cropped close quarters feel of this book might actually lend itself towards digesting the work and help the viewer gain a window necessary to digesting work of this nature with its variable perspective approach.
For the written content; the meat and potatoes is still in the "Regards" exhibition booklet from the Walker Art Center Exhibition. This is where Barry comes alive and speaks from the heart.
The Fondazione Prada book comes across more so as a sketch book and an extensive one at that.

Rating:
Summary: this works
Review: Yes this is the heaviest book of mcgee's thus far. weight wise, content wise. At least image wise that is. Beautiful, excessive, kinda small in size like a big fat sketch book. This might lend itself to the distacted variable ethos of the street, where the work has a short shelf life and an even shorter period in which to engage the viewer.
Yes, you should probably own this book, if you like McGee's work. With the scattershot approach and the distracted view already available prevalent and so expected in viewing public graff the scrap book approach and the cropped close quarters feel of this book might actually lend itself towards digesting the work and help the viewer gain a window necessary to digesting work of this nature with its variable perspective approach.
For the written content; the meat and potatoes is still in the "Regards" exhibition booklet from the Walker Art Center Exhibition. This is where Barry comes alive and speaks from the heart.
The Fondazione Prada book comes across more so as a sketch book and an extensive one at that.