*Please note the change in speaker. Britt Merrick is no longer able to attend the event*
In conjunction with Barry McGee: SB Mid Summer Intensive, join the MCASB Contemporaries at Channel Islands Surfboards for an evening dedicated to the art of surfboards. A Channel Islands team member will talk about the history of surfboard design and show the various forms the boards can take. MCASB’s exhibition features over one hundred and fifty boards created by a diverse group of shapers and re-imagined by McGee as stacked sculptural objects. Discover the intersection of contemporary art and surfing, while sipping wine by Municipal Winemakers, as the party and conversation continues into the night. MCASB Contemporaries Members receive free admission.
Special thanks to our sponsors Channel Island Surfboards and Municipal Winemakers.
Since 1969, Channel Islands Surfboards has been dedicated to performance and quality through hard work, innovation, and originality. Over the last 43 years, Channel Islands has grown from a local grass-roots operation to a cutting edge organization, catering to the best surfers in the world. It started with hard-core surfing and quality in mind and these guidelines have brought us through four decades of constant change in the surf industry. Channel Islands will shape the new millennium with innovative design and quality as our main focus.
Born in 1966, Barry McGee is arguably the most well-known and influential of the recent surge of artists from the Bay Area to have international success. He was raised in San Francisco, studied painting and printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute (graduating in 1991), and continues to live and work in the city. McGee’s boldly graphic, colorful work incorporates a multitude of influences (including, for example, graffiti, American folk art, and Op Art), but is most immediately evocative of the urban street culture from which he hails. Engaging the ways in which the city’s unique vernacular translates into artistic imagery, McGee celebrates the diversity, distinctive characters (one of his well-known motifs is a crawling, sad-sack bum), and neighborhood communities of the inner-city. His work critiques consumerist culture and the constant backdrop of commercialism in everyday interactions; rejecting the billboard and chain store, McGee instead finds inspiration in the seeming randomness of graffiti, the endless uploading of images on the internet, and the creative styling of misfits. McGee’s work succeeds in its sensitive balance between anarchy and collaboration, resulting in environments which immerse the viewer in his singular, yet inclusive, vision.
MCASB’s Contemporaries is a community of professionals aged 21-35 who engage with contemporary art and culture through dynamic programming, visits to exhibitions and artist studios, and seasonal networking events. Learn more here.