Part of the Dakis Joannou Collection, Holdfast is a collaborative painting installation by Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen, installed by McGee himself around DESTE’s entire exhibition space. Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen were a couple and many of their works were created jointly.
Barry McGee belongs to the new generation of emerging Californian artists. His work references a variety of sources, from Mexican murals and street art to the graffiti artists of the ‘70s and ‘80s and the San Francisco beatnik poets. McGee has devised a playful, colorful, and at the same time poetic language which is immediately recognizable. His work draws expresses the artist’s sympathy for those marginalized by contemporary society. Although some themes are often repeated and parts of his huge mural installations are painted in a graffiti-like, casual fashion, McGee’s works are in no way naïve nor are they executed with the speed characteristic of this genre. On the contrary, the finish of his works is refined, detailed, and consistent.
Margaret Kilgallen, who passed away just five months before the exhibition at age 34, was a leading figure in the community of street artists, surfers, skateboarders, and musicians in San Francisco. Her work draws from graphic design for advertising and store signs, wall paintings and street art, underground comics, and beatnik poetry. She often used collages of words and images to produce a rhythmic, visual narrative. In her works one can discern the artist’s contemporary spirit, but also her nostalgia for a world where experiences are unmediated rather than consumed second-hand through television and computers.
