"...It has to do with money and who has access to space.
And when I feel like the access to space is cut off for
the general public, I feel like that makes me want to do
stuff on the street even that much more."
"There's a lot of talk of how damaging graffiti is
and the destruction that happens with graffiti, but there's
actually no damage. It all can be removed or painted over
with a roller."
"I'd seen graffiti around, but I never had an idea
of what it was. But as soon as I got more and more involved
with it, it seemed like freedom to me, it was very empowering..."
You seem to be very interested
in the history of graffiti, as something that's been happening
since ancient times.
MCGEE:
Of course, if I see something,
I know it's something that everyone does and have done for
centuries upon centuries. The thing that I'm interested in
now is the idea of getting rid of it, this war on getting
rid of it, and this idea of silencing it or trying to get
rid of something. To me, that's the more interesting thing:
how in today's climate there can be huge billboards and bus
stop kiosks with advertising, and then along comes like a
simple tag or something that someone does on it, and that
thing is immediately removed overnight. To me, that's what
is really interesting about the whole thing now. It's about
the idea of public space and how people can function in public
space anywhere. It's gotten tighter and tighter, since the
Reagan-Bush era - the idea of private space and who can go
into this space or a park - what is considered a park now.
As those things get tighter and tighter and privately owned
property and surveillance and what not is increased, so is
this thing on the street. It also increases too for some odd
reason. And I'm not exactly sure why it's that way, but I
find it really interesting how quickly they want to get rid
of this thing. There could be a rooftop that is just sitting
dormant for a while, and someone goes up there and does an
amazing piece of graffiti or whatever you want to call it.
And then that's removed and two months later there's a huge
billboard over the whole spot anyway.
So it has to do with money and who has access to space. And
when I feel like the access to space is cut off for the general
public, I feel like that makes me want to do stuff on the
street even that much more. And the stuff in the galleries
is just arty. The art crowd is arty, and it's the same people.
Sometimes I feel like if I do something indoors, my circle
of people that sees things is getting smaller and smaller,
where if I'm outdoors it's open to anyone to look at, or see
or hate or whatnot. But doing stuff indoors - there's some
good things about it, but I know the audience is very limited.
ART:21:
But isn't painting an installtion
in a gallery like taking over that space, opening it up to
possibly new audiences?
MCGEE:
Well, yeah, it's like that and
it's even like that in rundown and abandoned areas. It's what
I know, me and a lot of friends just consider ours, you know?
It's really hard to have a feeling of ownership in today's
climate, too. I think the idea of owning something, or a space
that you can use or whatnot - I'm very cynical of it. And
the idea of private property, someone putting up a fence around
something, a chain-link fence and posts private property signs
- I have issues with those type of boundaries.
ART:21:
But at the same time you seem
very protective when it comes to an idea of mental space,
like all the advertising messages on billboards that get crammed
in the brain.
MCGEE:
There's a lot of talk of how
damaging graffiti is and the destruction that happens with
graffiti, but there's actually no damage. It all can be removed
or painted over with a roller. So there's the media's idea
of damage and destruction, this thing that's slightly askew.
To me, if there's commercial jingles from the '70s or '80s
that I remember and that are stuck in my head, that's damage
to me. Like you're driving down the street and all of a sudden
you're humming along to some commercial that you remember
when you were a kid - to me that's far more damaging. The
billboards are very subversive, and advertising is very subversive,
whereas most of the stuff that's done on the street is very
close to the truth. There's not so much subversion involved.
ART:21:
So would you say that street
stuff tends to be unmediated, closer to a person-to-person
interaction?
MCGEE:
It's person-to-person. A lot
of it's a very simple form of communication, but it's very
direct also. If someone feels strongly about something it's
just a matter of going out on the street and writing what
you wan and there it is for you. It's out there immediately
for the people to have to deal with. And it's just like a
headline on a newspaper, or a billboard that shows up in your
neighborhood overnight, and you're just like, "Oh, new Sprite
ad," or "a new Mountain Dew ad," and to me, it's all kind
of fair game out there. But one seems to keep getting removed
constantly and one just keeps on building and building in
neighborhoods and on the sides of buildings. And I'm sure,
as you know in Manhattan, it takes over whole entire blocks
of buildings. So there's no mystery; I know why it exists.
There's people that have a lot of money and there's people
that have next to nothing. But it competes with the space
that people consider the public space.
ART:21:
Were you conscious of graffiti
as a kid, as something that competed against advertising?
MCGEE:
I knew it existed but I think
I was really always very comfortable. When someone introduced
it to me, I'd seen graffiti around, but I never had an idea
of what it was. But as soon as I got more and more involved
with it, it seemed like freedom to me, it was very empowering
and it is something I enjoyed doing a lot, and the people
that were doing it were very interesting to me, too.
ART:21:
Were there any people who were
major influences for you when you began doing graffiti, any
master teachers?
MCGEE:
There were some strong influences
for sure, some very strong influences. I started in '84, and
that's in the the Reagan era. There was a lot of protesting
and there was a lot of interesting music going on at that
same time. So a lot of those things had big influences on
me, as far as punk
rock and hardcore music and just people doing things on
their own all these things that were going on. People seemed
like they were definitely more active then, had an opinion
about things, whereas now, I think people are like, "I got
to get mine before..." you know? It's more cutthroat now.
I think I'm a bit more cynical now. I think people were a
lot more politically aware. There was a lot of the ACT UP
and other groups of people that were constantly wheat-pasting
on the street, and there was a lot of protesting and a lot
of questioning of things. But I think going into the mid-90s,
it all kind of changed. And there was a big shift.
