Barry mcgee installation signs

A rusty shed stands in the third gallery of the thrilling Barry McGee exhibit at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art. The exterior is plated, or armored, with old rusty metal trays that were once used for letterpress printing. And one side is painted with a larger-than-life, brown and white cartoon of a sad-eyed man, unshaven and wearing no shirt or shoes. He’s on his hands and knees in exhaustion and defeat, with his hands together perhaps praying. It could be a self-portrait.

A rope blocks us from going in the doorway. But on the walls inside are small groupings of folksy drawings and paintings of ladies and trees and shoes by Margaret Kilgallen, whom McGee met in 1990 and married in 1999. The atmosphere in there is sweet and jaunty, because that’s the tone of much of Kilgallen’s work.

She died in 2001 at age 33, just weeks after the birth of their daughter, Asha. Kilgallen had been diagnosed with breast cancer, but had declined to get treatment