art & photo 09 Dec 2008 11:45 am
Ryan McGinley
There’s an interesting travel diary up on Interview by Ryan McGinley.
I’m not sure how I feel about McGinley’s work. I like it. I hate it. I think it’s honest and I find it totally disingenuous. It’s similar to how I feel about other “we’re young and naked and having the fun you wish you had,” type of art. Dash Snow comes to mind in a half-assed way. In looking at Snow’s wikipedia entry I see him mentioned in conjunction with McGinley, Nan Goldin and Larry Clark. The Clark comparison seems appropriate but Goldin’s work seems totally different to me. I’m guessing it’s because I know she shoots her friends and family and McGinley casts and hires models to go on a naked road trip. In that context, McGinley’s work seems like the advertising version of Goldin’s. Rose and Olive also come to mind though I know a lot less about them than Nan Goldin so it’s hard to place them on the McGinley to Goldin spectrum. And, come to think of it, I don’t really know that much about Goldin. Interviews and articles on the internet do not a relationship make.
on 09 Dec 2008 at 4:14 pm 1.Shannon said …
Interesting interview. McGinley, Dash Snow and Larry Clark were all connected via their work with Vice Magazine. The Vice Photo Book is a good resource to pick up more information, for it chronicles their work with the magazine and interviews them, revealing the mindsets behind their individual work and as a group of photographers. McGinley did get his start by photographing friends first in New York City as an art student and during weekend trips to a friends cabin in Vermont, then went on to hire and photograph models on trips across the west. What pulls me in most to McGinley’s work is the feeling of validation of life that I feel when I look at his photos; the embrace of movement, color and living. I admire the way he approaches the formal aspects of his photography, the color profiles are beautiful, specifically I’m thinking of the photo of a girl reflected and enveloped by an expansive blue sky.
On comparing Nan Goldin and Ryan McGinley, I think of them as being of a different period in time and of a slightly different approach, Goldin’s moment being around a decade before McGinley’s, but I might be wrong.
link: The Vice Photobook
on 23 Jun 2009 at 6:48 pm 2.white beard said …
hipster art is what you’re referring to.