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http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/ryan-mcginleys-menagerie/Ryan McGinley’s Menagerie
Culture |By MARCUS CHANG | May 1, 2012, 6:00 pm
Ryan McGinley’s “Fawn (Fuchsia)”; “Barn Owl (Pale Gold)”; “Lemur (Lilac)”
2012. Courtesy of the artist and Team Gallery, New York
The last time the 34-year-old photographer Ryan McGinley had a show in New York City, the scene was more like a rock concert than any gallery opening. Inside, the crowd swelled to the point where you could barely make out the work on the wall, at which point it spilled into the streets, obstructing traffic, until the Police Department arrived and shut down the whole operation. This year the law will be on McGinley’s side: “We’re getting the police to block off the street, it’s gonna be like a fun block party,” he promises of “The Animals,” an exhibition of new work that opens at Team Gallery on Wednesday. I stopped by McGinley’s Canal Street studio for a sneak peak of the colorful photographs, in which naked models — of both the two- and four-legged variety — commingle playfully.
This new photographs are uncharacteristic for you in many ways. What made you shift your focus from youthful nudity to exotic animals?
I slowly began making a few photos with animals over the years, and I liked how people reacted to them. When I would have the animals on set, I’d notice the way the models would interact with them and there was so much true emotion that you rarely see between two human beings. It was fun for me to watch; the people were really just props for the animals to climb on.
What genre would you say this photography falls into?
I don’t even know if I want to call it a genre, like animal photography. It’s hard to think of where my work or my aesthetic falls: the place between a Hallmark card, a William Wegman portrait of dogs or just pictures that people take of their animals every day. For me it was about getting it to feel really psychedelic. I never explored color in the studio before, and it’s gonna feel like a candy store.
What was it like working with models that don’t take direction?
We used hundreds of boxes of wet wipes because the animals were pooping and peeing everywhere and all over everybody. It’s not like I planned any of the photos — they all pretty much just came about by putting the person and the animal together and letting it organically happen using the body as a landscape, and finding the moment that made sense. I know that I created that moment because I put these elements together but it was still completely out of my power.
How do you decide on a final image?
Whenever I feel I have a final image, I look at it and ask myself: “Would this be a good album cover? Could I put the Rolling Stones across this and would it hold up?” Obviously I wanted these photographs to be about the body and the way that these exotic animals can interact, but at the same time I wanted to follow the rules of what I do in photography — that the images are well composed, that the color palette makes sense and that it has a sense of balance.
Would you ever go back to the documentary style of your first photographs?
Only if I really spent time documenting one person. I want to venture into film more, and I think that a nice way to transition into doing that would be a documentary. I think it would be interesting to find one person that really fascinated me or maybe a band and travel with them, but I don’t think I could do it like I used to do it.
Looking back now, how would you describe those fledgling days of your career?
Back then it was whatever the day held. Whether you end up in a bar or having a moment in a bathroom with somebody. I photographed everything: my food, people in the park, my experiences in New York, being young and gay. I was trying to find my voice through documenting my life. Then I started to realize the things that were important to me — like I love movement, and I love nudity, and I really love just the landscape and being outside, and traveling through the United States. And things that weren’t so interesting to me started dropping off. I was figuring out what kind of photographer I was gonna be.
What goes through your head when you see those images of all your friends and your early experiences?
It’s weird being a photographer because you really have to divorce yourself from the image. After a while the early photos of mine that keep coming up and appearing in exhibitions or in books no longer give me the feeling that I’m looking at a family album anymore. I had to let go of them as personal moments or else I’d be living in the past, and who wants to live in the past? I need to keep the wheel moving forward.
So you’re completely emotionally divorced from them?
Well, it’s nice to think about the people that helped me out along the way. To think that they saw something in those pictures that would let them extend an opportunity to me to do something bigger, that’s what I see a lot now when I look at my early work. ‘Cause, I don’t know, some of them are really bad! But it’s interesting to think that there are people out there that saw something and were like, “O.K., there’s something about what this guy is doing that is interesting and I see potential.” I can see that now as I’m older and looking at other young artists’ work. You really can see how amazing somebody is.
I feel that your openings are just as much about the experience of being surrounded by so many people than they are about your photographs. How does it feel to have such a big following?
It’s fun to hear about how people will start calling up the gallery about a month before the show and ask how much tickets are to get in, or if they need to wear a suit. For us it’s funny because we all know that galleries are free and you don’t have to wear a suit, but it’s exciting for me to think that my works is reaching a person who wouldn’t necessarily come to a gallery and that somehow my art has touched them in a way that brings them to a place that they don’t normally go, and I think that’s really cool and that makes me really happy. Who knows? You might see someone cute there.
More photos from the show can be seen on the 6th Floor blog.
“Animals” is at Team Gallery, 83 Grand Street, New York, from May 2 to June 2. Go to teamgal.com.
http://www.complex.com/art-design/2012/05/ryan-mcginley-animals-grids-openings-at-team-gallery
http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/a-sneak-preview-of-ryan-mcginleys-new-show/
.. there's definitely a bit of magic translated into pages when you get a group of people that know what teamwork is and excel in their own field, even Lucia's makeup is spot on. And I think Lara's a perfect choice for that, Lily would've been too literal and Eniko's beauty would've turned this into just another 'ethereal' story that could've easily been shot in 2006-2008.. I love that there's a bit of darkness in Lara's stare that makes the landscape a bit more of a 'mental trip' or adults' dream instead Alice's Wonderland or the garden of eden. And that's what I love about Ryan too, that his work integrates a lot of fantasy or dreaminess but it's little interested on naivete or being entirely conventional..
