Renowned American artist Barry McGee was invited to create a public artwork for Urbanity:(Re)Engaged as part of the City of Sydney Laneways festival in 2011 by Amanda Sharrad and co-curator Justine Topfer while they were both based in San Francisco. The curatorial brief and vision for Urbanity:(Re)Engaged was to inhabit and activate urban space with artworks produced at the intersection of commissioned public art and the spontaneous creative. The curatorial idea was to explore the tension between these two instances of art occurring in the public realm. Three artists were brought to Sydney from the United States, all with high profile creative practices involving street art (Barry McGee), guerrilla knitting (Magda Sayeg) and design/placemaking activism (Rebar), along with First Nations artist Brook Andrew from Melbourne. ​

McGee generously offered two large scale works, the silver Amaze running twenty-five meters along Tankstream Way and up to sixe meters high, and the red graffiti-based Untitled on Abercrombie Lane facing Pitt Street that extended up to twelve meter high. The red work was a development of the well known artwork McGee had just produced for Houston Street and the Bowery in New York City in 2010, that also graced the cover of Art in the Streets, the seminal exhibition and retrospective of forty years of the best street art in the United States at The Geffen Contemporary MOCA n LA organised by Jeffrey Deitch, Roger Gastman and Aaron Rose earlier that year.

McGee is one of the most highly respected street artist in America who has inspired generation of artists in the field. McGee simultaneously has a successful international gallery practice. Based in San Francisco, McGee continues to draw much of his inspiration from that city's street art and urban culture, particularly the Mission district as the place of origin for his characters such as the well loved 'sad sacks'. In the words of his New York gallery Cheim and Reid, "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." It is for this reason that the curators selected McGee to create an artwork that addresses the tension between the collaborative commission and private random creative act. 

Images: City of Sydney