da série "I Know Where the Summer Goes"
Ryan McGinley (born 1977, 17th of October) is an artist photographer from New York City whose works are somewhat similar to certain confessional photographers like Nan Goldin, Larry Clark, and Wolfgang Tillmans.
His subjects include mostly color images of friends and lovers, as well as youth more so on the 'fringes' of society (e.g., skateboarders, graffiti writers, etc.)
As of 2006, his works have been seen in many galleries and museums. At 24 he was the youngest artist to have a solo show in New York's Whitney Museum of American Art. He has also had solo shows at New York's PS1 and in Spain at the MUSAC in Leon. He is represented by Team Gallery in New York. His apartment, at one point, had its walls covered with Polaroid pictures of everyone who had ever visited him.
In 2007 he was awarded the Young Photographer Infinity award by the International Center for Photography.In 2008, the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós used one of McGinley's images for their fifth album Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. The video for the first track from the album, "Gobbledigook", is also inspired by his work.
in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_McGinley
Ryan McGinely, Highway, 2007
Ryan McGinley has said that, first and foremost, his art reflects his lifestyle. It's a freewheeling lifestyle, one that involves a lot of hanging out and nudity, a lot of spontaneity, and a lot of celebrities. McGinley started out in the late 1990s and early noughties taking snapshots of himself and his rag-haired, downtown friends, sprawled naked in their tobacco-splattered beds or leaping through starry backdrops, apparently in the midst of a creative fervor – the sort that involves a lot of doodling, Polaroid snapping, lolling about in baths and beds, casual theatrics and ejaculating. Of course, this description of McGinley's lifestyle belies the graceful discipline evident in the artist's work.
In the past decade, after making history as the youngest artist to have a solo show at the Whitney (he was 24), McGinley has pretty much created his own dazzling universe, and is now in consummate control of it. Early last year, in preparation for his current show at Team Gallery, I Know Where the Summer Goes, McGinley held naked hangout sessions in his Manhattan studio, during which he selected a cast of floppy-beautiful teens – some of whom are fledgling artists in awe of his celebrated genius – to accompany him on a road trip across America's rough and wondrous landscapes.
Along with his van full of lithe young bodies, several other vans followed in train, full of equipment like snow machines, trampolines and explosives. This was to be the ultimate, fully-equipped, big-budget, coming-of-age photoshoot. As such, surface is not supposed to be the point of McGinley's art. But this show suffers from a surfeit of it: there's too much nudity, too many provocative close ups, too much beauty.
Nudity and scandal are part of the point, of course – or perhaps, nudity without scandal. This is a lifestyle, after all, and a healthier and more wholesome one than the blitzed out depravity and dinginess rendered by McGinley's forefather Larry Clarke. As well as the old master of photographing the excesses of youth, an inspiration for I Know Where the Summer Goes is the nudist magazines of the 1960s and 1970s. You know, those sepia-hued pages advertising the world's nudist retreats in which men with elegant chest tufts and women donning patterned headscarfs sprawl about sun-drenched 'scapes looking like Woody Allen characters on vacation (when they are not looking like porn stars on coffee break). And this is exactly what McGinley's series look like – the Woody Allen version, I mean. They also look like models – your everyday myspace or nerve.com hipster-type of model, that is – on a smoke break during an American Apparel shoot.
The excess of insouciant play in the wide open spaces of American youth induces claustrophobia viewed in the civilized gallery space, especially in the basement, where close to a third of the works are crammed together on three walls. Look left to right, from bare, flailing limb to bare, resting breast and you start to wonder: are these photos of happily naked youth doing what happily naked youth do? How much instruction is coming from the lanky, (also) naked artist capturing them? Does he ever give the camera a rest? (The answer is no: he apparently shot 4,000 rolls of film – 150,000 photographs.) Does this frolicking only occur when the world might be watching? The expressions are a mix of earnestness, innocence and nonchalance – a provocative dynamic, evoking the complexities of adolescence, of voyeurism and of exhibitionism. But produced over and over again, it all starts to feel a little pervy.
In Coley, a stringy-haired boy rests on a red cushion against a corner of what might be a truck or a boat. He looks innocently at the camera, perhaps a little surprised, but his stance is as aloof as it is awkward: his left leg is propped on the cushion, his thighs spread a little too eagerly, exposing his crotch. He can't be too comfortable with his bony ribs hitting the metallic edges of the vehicle like that. His come-hitherness feels weary: When is beer time? In Rebecca, the girl version of Coley (milky and boney with round, simple breasts) twirls a cigarette in her hand, as her upper half plus crotch is captured, occupying the frame. A checkered background recalls the lumberjack flannel that Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton wore in tabloid shots this summer. Rebecca's half-smile gives little away, and her head is cocked to the side as if she's been snapped out of a trance. It seems McGinley caught her off guard, reminding her that the impromptu stances are often the most effective. 'That's beautiful', you can imagine him saying. 'This is the real you.'
Ann, on the other hand, is posing (in Ann (Sand)). She's strewn on a beach, squinting as a vicious ray of sun hits her burnt face. She holds a white towel to her forehead. Propped on an elbow, she's caught between a squat and a slide, the frame cutting her off at the torso. It’s as if Ann is enduring the rigorous tests Tyra Banks inflicts on the contestants of America's Next Top Model. The photo is brilliant: Ann, with her stark white bikini marks, is at once terrifying and vulnerable – like the landscape she's found herself in. If not for the dozens of like images, her nudity would be beside the point.
Whittled down to half of its 50 photos, this show might have avoided the unfortunate detour into creepy town. Standing alone, most of McGinley's images are spectacular, and some of them are worthy of hours of pondering. Those that will live on longest in the memory are ones in which pert and plush body parts are not the focus. Laura (Thunderstorm) is an ecstatic image, in which Laura – whose wide eyes are the exact same colour as they sky – smiles wondrously, her head poking up from the frame's lower edge as if she woke to find herself in the midst of an electric blue thunderstorm – a sky of such luminous beauty that most people won't experience in their lifetime. The photo evokes Van Gogh's roiling sublime skies and Michel Gondry's playful, color-loving film sets. Then in Fireworks Hysteric (2007-08), a reedy girl flings her arms in the midst of an explosion of gold fireworks. She's shrieking, laughing or crying – it's not clear which, and it's scary and gorgeous.
This is where McGinley shines, at the intersection of ragged nature and unreal beauty. McGinley's last show at Team was a collection of mystical images he took on tour with Morrissey, the king of sad looking god-like and his followers in the throes of religious ecstasy. McGinley took one of the most debated rock icons of several generations and showed us what worship looks like: a fanatic state McGinley has experienced from both sides. It's this paradox position – somewhere between earnest celebrity artist and freewheeling participant – that makes and breaks this shutterbug in his prime. When he started out, McGinley was both one of his subjects – the same as them – and simultaneously lauded for representing a mystifying and beguiling generation. He's a little older now, and much more established, yet he's directing models in a time of life that he has long since evolved from. Were he a little less precious about his protégés, he'd more consistently transcend their fashionable nudity and penetrate the surface they present to the world, to the camera. Anyone can open a myspace account; it takes a certain social philosophy – or dare we say mission? – to portray the intricacies of its generation.
in http://www.artreview.com/forum/topic/show?id=1474022%3ATopic%3A173331
In the past decade, after making history as the youngest artist to have a solo show at the Whitney (he was 24), McGinley has pretty much created his own dazzling universe, and is now in consummate control of it. Early last year, in preparation for his current show at Team Gallery, I Know Where the Summer Goes, McGinley held naked hangout sessions in his Manhattan studio, during which he selected a cast of floppy-beautiful teens – some of whom are fledgling artists in awe of his celebrated genius – to accompany him on a road trip across America's rough and wondrous landscapes.
Along with his van full of lithe young bodies, several other vans followed in train, full of equipment like snow machines, trampolines and explosives. This was to be the ultimate, fully-equipped, big-budget, coming-of-age photoshoot. As such, surface is not supposed to be the point of McGinley's art. But this show suffers from a surfeit of it: there's too much nudity, too many provocative close ups, too much beauty.
Nudity and scandal are part of the point, of course – or perhaps, nudity without scandal. This is a lifestyle, after all, and a healthier and more wholesome one than the blitzed out depravity and dinginess rendered by McGinley's forefather Larry Clarke. As well as the old master of photographing the excesses of youth, an inspiration for I Know Where the Summer Goes is the nudist magazines of the 1960s and 1970s. You know, those sepia-hued pages advertising the world's nudist retreats in which men with elegant chest tufts and women donning patterned headscarfs sprawl about sun-drenched 'scapes looking like Woody Allen characters on vacation (when they are not looking like porn stars on coffee break). And this is exactly what McGinley's series look like – the Woody Allen version, I mean. They also look like models – your everyday myspace or nerve.com hipster-type of model, that is – on a smoke break during an American Apparel shoot.
The excess of insouciant play in the wide open spaces of American youth induces claustrophobia viewed in the civilized gallery space, especially in the basement, where close to a third of the works are crammed together on three walls. Look left to right, from bare, flailing limb to bare, resting breast and you start to wonder: are these photos of happily naked youth doing what happily naked youth do? How much instruction is coming from the lanky, (also) naked artist capturing them? Does he ever give the camera a rest? (The answer is no: he apparently shot 4,000 rolls of film – 150,000 photographs.) Does this frolicking only occur when the world might be watching? The expressions are a mix of earnestness, innocence and nonchalance – a provocative dynamic, evoking the complexities of adolescence, of voyeurism and of exhibitionism. But produced over and over again, it all starts to feel a little pervy.
In Coley, a stringy-haired boy rests on a red cushion against a corner of what might be a truck or a boat. He looks innocently at the camera, perhaps a little surprised, but his stance is as aloof as it is awkward: his left leg is propped on the cushion, his thighs spread a little too eagerly, exposing his crotch. He can't be too comfortable with his bony ribs hitting the metallic edges of the vehicle like that. His come-hitherness feels weary: When is beer time? In Rebecca, the girl version of Coley (milky and boney with round, simple breasts) twirls a cigarette in her hand, as her upper half plus crotch is captured, occupying the frame. A checkered background recalls the lumberjack flannel that Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton wore in tabloid shots this summer. Rebecca's half-smile gives little away, and her head is cocked to the side as if she's been snapped out of a trance. It seems McGinley caught her off guard, reminding her that the impromptu stances are often the most effective. 'That's beautiful', you can imagine him saying. 'This is the real you.'
Ann, on the other hand, is posing (in Ann (Sand)). She's strewn on a beach, squinting as a vicious ray of sun hits her burnt face. She holds a white towel to her forehead. Propped on an elbow, she's caught between a squat and a slide, the frame cutting her off at the torso. It’s as if Ann is enduring the rigorous tests Tyra Banks inflicts on the contestants of America's Next Top Model. The photo is brilliant: Ann, with her stark white bikini marks, is at once terrifying and vulnerable – like the landscape she's found herself in. If not for the dozens of like images, her nudity would be beside the point.
Whittled down to half of its 50 photos, this show might have avoided the unfortunate detour into creepy town. Standing alone, most of McGinley's images are spectacular, and some of them are worthy of hours of pondering. Those that will live on longest in the memory are ones in which pert and plush body parts are not the focus. Laura (Thunderstorm) is an ecstatic image, in which Laura – whose wide eyes are the exact same colour as they sky – smiles wondrously, her head poking up from the frame's lower edge as if she woke to find herself in the midst of an electric blue thunderstorm – a sky of such luminous beauty that most people won't experience in their lifetime. The photo evokes Van Gogh's roiling sublime skies and Michel Gondry's playful, color-loving film sets. Then in Fireworks Hysteric (2007-08), a reedy girl flings her arms in the midst of an explosion of gold fireworks. She's shrieking, laughing or crying – it's not clear which, and it's scary and gorgeous.
This is where McGinley shines, at the intersection of ragged nature and unreal beauty. McGinley's last show at Team was a collection of mystical images he took on tour with Morrissey, the king of sad looking god-like and his followers in the throes of religious ecstasy. McGinley took one of the most debated rock icons of several generations and showed us what worship looks like: a fanatic state McGinley has experienced from both sides. It's this paradox position – somewhere between earnest celebrity artist and freewheeling participant – that makes and breaks this shutterbug in his prime. When he started out, McGinley was both one of his subjects – the same as them – and simultaneously lauded for representing a mystifying and beguiling generation. He's a little older now, and much more established, yet he's directing models in a time of life that he has long since evolved from. Were he a little less precious about his protégés, he'd more consistently transcend their fashionable nudity and penetrate the surface they present to the world, to the camera. Anyone can open a myspace account; it takes a certain social philosophy – or dare we say mission? – to portray the intricacies of its generation.
in http://www.artreview.com/forum/topic/show?id=1474022%3ATopic%3A173331
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