Brian McKee

Brian Mckee is a contemporary visual artist, who was born and brought up in the United States, like other prominent artists such as Val Britton, Chris Doyle, J.A. Feng, Darren Bader, and John Mason.

Brian Mckee was born in 1977 and was primarily influenced by the 1980s growing up. The 80s were an era of developing global capitalism, political upheaval, worldwide mass media, wealth discrepancies and unique music and fashion, characterised by hip hop and electronic pop music. This had a heavy impact on the generation of artists growing up during this decade. The fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of the 80s signified the end of the Cold War, yet the era was also marked by the African Famine. During this time prominent art movements included Neo Geo, The Pictures Generation and Neo-Expressionism, which took a particular hold in Germany, France and Italy. Artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Jörg Immendorff, Enzo Cucchi, Francesco Clemente and Julian Schnabel were key artists working at this time, alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf, who established the street art and graffiti movements, which quickly gained recognition.

As an artistic scene for McKee, the United States has been a major country in the evolution of modern and contemporary art in the twentieth century, especially in the post war era, when the cultural status of New York assumed primacy over Paris, formerly considered as the most important art centre globally. Leading art movements established and fostered in extensive ways throughout the United States include Abstract Expressionism in various forms, Pop Art, including its West and East Coast branches, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Neo-Expressionism, Graffiti and Street Art, plus various post-modern echoes of these many movements. In the modern and contemporary age, the United States has exercised a prevailing influence upon the worldwide visual culture, due to the authority of its economic and political institutions. Key examples of critically acclaimed U.S artists of the modern and contemporary era include Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Donald Judd, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Julian Schnabel, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring.

EXHIBITIONS:

2010 Power Suites, Vogt Bernal Gallery, New York (solo)

          The obscure objects of my desire, Galerie Ernst Hilger, Vienna

2009 Continuous Perspectives #2, Nusser & Baumgart @ Spinnerei Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

          Silent Spaces - Rooms of Silence, H2 - Center for Contemporary Art in the Glaspalast, Augsburg. Germany

2008 Brilliant fireworks. 11 companies. 11 collections, curated by U. Kittelmann, House of Art, Munich

          structural memory, Nusser & Baumgart, Munich, Germany (solo)

2007 Temptation, The Columns Art Center, Seoul, Korea

          The Scent Of Korea, Daegu Gyeongbuk Center, Daegu, Korea

          Documents-The Memory of the Future, Museo de Arte Contemporanea de Vigo/ Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea, San Sebastian (Spain)

          Rainbow soldier. Liquid heart. The aesthetics of travel in contemporary photography, Innsbrucker Stadtgalerie, Innsbruck

2006 See photography..., Nusser & Baumgart Contemporary, Munich

          S.M.B. - Detritus (solo), Municipal Museum Schweinfurt

          Urbanus (solo), The Columns Art Center, Seoul, Korea

2005 Aesthetics of the documentary, Gallery of the City of Wels, Austria

          Urbanus, hilger contemporary, Vienna, Austria (solo)

          Urbanus, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York (solo)

          Uzbekistan, Galeria Arnés y Röpke, Madrid, Spain (solo)

2004 Brian McKee. Detritus, Nusser & Baumgart Contemporary, Munich (solo)

2003 Brian McKee. Detritus, Gallery Hilger, Vienna (solo)

          Brian McKee. Detritus, Gallery Poller, Frankfurt / Main (solo)

          25 under 25, Table Gallery, New York

2002 Mudai, Gallery Christa Schübbe, Dusseldorf, Germany

          October Report, The Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery, Tel Aviv University, Israel

          The Blue Square, Gallery Viehofer Strasse 26, Essen, Germany

          International Young Art, Sotheby's Tel Aviv, Israel

          International Young Art, Sotheby's Amsterdam, Netherlands

          International Young Art, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York

          Photography from New York, Galerie KunstRaum, Essen, Germany (solo)

2001 The Soviet military bases, KunstMarkt, Krefeld, Germany (solo)

2000 Annual New Images Exhibition, New Images Gallery, James Madison University, Virginia, USA

1999 Sites, Olin Gallery, Annadale, New York (solo)