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Assessed for mellowness and strong personalites
Adda Birnir wrote a nice review which I largely agree with on Ryan McGinley’s current work at Team Gallery (38 Grand Street), on ArtCal.
As a person in my twenties, tangentially part of the community McGinley purports to represent, I have long resented him for promoting a patently false, fetishistic image of an East Village hipster milieu whose reckless abandon is largely inspired by self-destructive drug use. At best, this falsehood was a tired old cliché that has sold art for decades. At worst, it was part of a collective fantasy of immortality that can — and has — had disastrous consequences.
Remarks: 2 of 2
Remark · Zach · 26 April 2008
I agree with her sentiment in large part but I find this review to be pretty perfunctory. She wants to invent a gap between the limitations imposed by this subject-matter and the apparent intent of the photographer; but I think these have always been an explicit concession by McGinley (obvious from the press release the reviewer quotes from and the manner of presentation in previous shows). Resorting to superficial comparisons with Nan Goldin and Edward Weston seems pretty desperate.
Remark · Chris · 26 April 2008
The last paragraph is a near-total waste. And though perfunctory it may be, this statement is at least factual:
I would like to believe that certain personal tragedies contributed to this apparent maturation and shift in tone, although I realize that I Know Where the Summer Goes may simply be the natural progression of a diligent artist winnowing down his aesthetic interests. Either way, the series showcases a marked departure from McGinley’s earlier work, even though the component parts have remained the same: he is still asking his subjects to drive naked with him on a summer road-trip.
I’m not exactly sure if Birnir’s intent is in distinguishing a gap between McGinley’s images and intent. That doesn’t really interest me anyway. But I do find it curious, or at least humorous, that he decided to admit to staging, which has always been entirely obvious. The admission not only adds a tiny bit of honestly to pictures which always felt a bit too close to fashion photographs, but also grants some depth; it centers the work more on process than final product, which is a clever trick when dealing with shallow images like these. Thinking about it this way doesn’t rescue the work from its hipstery gloss, but makes for interesting drama. I have always found McGinley’s photographs somewhat gross — prettier than Terry Richardson, but cut from the same cloth — and though I still see very little in these images, a slight focus on the McGinley’s intent adds a considerable amount of interest.