{"id":21809,"date":"2022-07-15T13:12:33","date_gmt":"2022-07-15T17:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=21809"},"modified":"2022-07-15T13:26:08","modified_gmt":"2022-07-15T17:26:08","slug":"todd-mckie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2022\/07\/15\/todd-mckie\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering The Tender Comedy of Todd McKie\u2019s Art Via Last Studio Photos"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1971, Todd McKie, Martin Mull, Kristin Johnson, Jo Sandman, David Raymond and Bob \u201cSidewalk Sam\u201d Guillermin snuck their artworks into a basement bathroom at Boston\u2019s Museum of Fine Arts for a guerrilla exhibition and wine and cheese reception they dubbed \u201cFlush with the Walls.\u201d On the one hand, it poked the museum for failing to show works by local living artists, but it was also a joke, a lark.<\/p>\n

McKie had come up with the idea. \u201cWe did want to shake things up a little and have some fun,\u201d he told Carl Belz for the catalog to a 1990 exhibition at Brandeis University\u2019s Rose Art Museum. \u201cWith the mens\u2019s room show there were people in the group of us who did it who wanted to make it a much more political event, but I think the politics were so closely connected with the fun part of it that, to me, the meaning seemed clear. It wasn\u2019t done as a political move, although it had political implications. For me it wasn\u2019t done to affect any particular change. It just sprang out.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKie\u2019s art is the subject of \u201cLast But Not Least,\u201d an exhibition at Boston\u2019s Gallery Naga<\/a> from June 10 to July 15, 2022, of paintings he was working on before his death on Jan. 30 at age 77 from lung disease. The photos here by Bill Kipp (courtesy of Gallery Naga) show McKie’s studio at his Cambridge home as he left it.<\/p>\n

\"Todd<\/a>
Todd McKie’s studio in his Cambridge home as he left it at his death on Jan. 30, 2022, at age 77. (Bill Kipp photo \/ Courtesy Gallery Naga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

McKie was an inspiration for me. In June 2011, I organized a 40th anniversary homage to “Flush with the Walls” as a guerrilla exhibition in a different Museum of Fine Arts bathroom including Sandman, Raymond, Guillermin and several other artists. I invited McKie to take part too. He politely declined. But it was the beginning of an occasional conversation, though we never met.<\/p>\n

Todd McKie was born in Boston in 1944, grew up in New Hope, Pennsylvania (he told The Boston Globe in 1972), and graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in Providence in 1966, where he met his wife Judy Kensley McKie, a studio furniture creator, and moved to Cambridge.<\/p>\n

The couple was commissioned to make banners illustrating the zodiac for the Woodstock music festival in 1969. When rains came, audience members ripped them down to use as makeshift tents.<\/p>\n

Along with the bathroom exhibition, McKie and Mull partnered with Fred Brink as Smart Ducky for more art world shenanigans\u2014like Mull and McKie wearing chefs\u2019 hats and serving hors d\u2019oeurves resembling Brancusi, Pollock, Seurat and Matisse artworks. \u201cBrancusi is probably best known for his birds in flight,\u201d McKie told The Boston Globe in 1972. \u201cI\u2019m convinced that if he\u2019d been working in food, he would have used wieners and cheese.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Todd<\/a>
Todd McKie’s studio in his Cambridge home as he left it at his death on Jan. 30, 2022, at age 77. (Bill Kipp photo \/ Courtesy Gallery Naga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

McKie\u2019s art often evoked a reverence for and bemusement with art history. It sometimes felt like a blend of Jean Dubuffet and Joan Miro and William Steig. One could see a kinship in his art with Chicago Imagism and San Francisco funk. His paintings were cartoony and painterly and suffused with a wry comedy and childlike playfulness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just seems natural to me,\u201d McKie told The Boston Globe in 1972. \u201cI will choose a funny movie over a sad, poignant one every time. Humor is a natural part of life. Some people share the attitude that art should be treated like a sacred icon or an object to be revered. That\u2019s baloney.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he added, as he often did, \u201cI\u2019m pretty serious about what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

McKie painted watercolors in 1970s and \u201880s. He told Belz, you \u201chave to work very fast, it\u2019s very athletic in some ways, especially those big watercolor paintings of mine. \u2026 You have to have a plan of attack. I like that, I like planning it out. There\u2019s a part of me that\u2019s anal\/compulsive enough to love being totally in control. With watercolor I was finally able to get quite a bit of control, and that\u2019s probably why I stopped doing it. I think what drove me out of it was that I didn\u2019t want to know exactly how it was going to come out. I wanted to be more out of control. Now I\u2019m learning to use that, but I have to keep slapping myself because I know part of me wants to make it totally controlled.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the late 1980s and into the \u201890s, McKie switched to enamel and flashe acrylic paintings (he had a way of evoking mood with color), handmade paper compositions, and ceramics. He made goofy heads from stones and doodled faces on photos of the backs of bald men\u2019s heads. He painted murals for Boston\u2019s South Station bus terminal. He published short funny stories in McSweeney’s.<\/p>\n

McKie told Belz in 1990, \u201cI\u2019d go nuts if I were just painting\u2014it\u2019s too lonely a pursuit, you get too focused, you lose the forest for the trees.”<\/p>\n

\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, occasional newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2022 or the respective creators.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"Todd<\/a>
Todd McKie’s studio in his Cambridge home as he left it at his death on Jan. 30, 2022, at age 77. (Bill Kipp photo \/ Courtesy Gallery Naga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Todd<\/a>
Todd McKie’s studio in his Cambridge home as he left it at his death on Jan. 30, 2022, at age 77. (Bill Kipp photo \/ Courtesy Gallery Naga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Todd<\/a>
Todd McKie’s studio in his Cambridge home as he left it at his death on Jan. 30, 2022, at age 77. (Bill Kipp photo \/ Courtesy Gallery Naga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Todd<\/a>
Todd McKie’s studio in his Cambridge home as he left it at his death on Jan. 30, 2022, at age 77. (Bill Kipp photo \/ Courtesy Gallery Naga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Todd<\/a>
Todd McKie’s studio in his Cambridge home as he left it at his death on Jan. 30, 2022, at age 77. (Bill Kipp photo \/ Courtesy Gallery Naga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Todd<\/a>
Todd McKie’s studio in his Cambridge home as he left it at his death on Jan. 30, 2022, at age 77. (Bill Kipp photo \/ Courtesy Gallery Naga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Todd<\/a>
Todd McKie’s studio in his Cambridge home as he left it at his death on Jan. 30, 2022, at age 77. (Bill Kipp photo \/ Courtesy Gallery Naga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Todd<\/a>
Todd McKie’s studio in his Cambridge home as he left it at his death on Jan. 30, 2022, at age 77. (Bill Kipp photo \/ Courtesy Gallery Naga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Todd<\/a>
Todd McKie’s studio in his Cambridge home as he left it at his death on Jan. 30, 2022, at age 77. (Bill Kipp photo \/ Courtesy Gallery Naga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Todd<\/a>
Todd McKie’s studio in his Cambridge home as he left it at his death on Jan. 30, 2022, at age 77. (Bill Kipp photo \/ Courtesy Gallery Naga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Todd<\/a>
Todd McKie’s studio in his Cambridge home as he left it at his death on Jan. 30, 2022, at age 77. (Bill Kipp photo \/ Courtesy Gallery Naga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1971, Todd McKie, Martin Mull, Kristin Johnson, Jo Sandman, David Raymond and Bob \u201cSidewalk Sam\u201d Guillermin snuck their artworks into a basement bathroom at Boston\u2019s Museum of Fine Arts for a guerrilla exhibition and wine and cheese reception they dubbed \u201cFlush with the Walls.\u201d On the one hand, it poked the museum for failing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[984,983],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21809"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21836,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21809\/revisions\/21836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}