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The kid is alright: 25-year-old art star Ryan McGinley went from skate punk to photographer, but his worldview remains the same - art - Interview
Advocate, The, March 4, 2003 by Les Simpson
"I don't know if I was repressed or what, but being gay never even crossed my mind," recalls Ryan McGinley about his rowdy teen years growing up in New Jersey and raising hell in Manhattan. "I was just skateboarding and snowboarding with my homies, and girls weren't really that big a part of my life." Today, at 25, McGinley still hangs out with a crew of boisterous buddies, but he's traded in his skateboard for a camera, and his pictures of his pals--spraying graffiti, rolling joints, having sex, and killing time on New York's hip and happening lower east side--have drawn comparisons to the work of renowned photo essayists such as Nan Goldin and Wolfgang Tillmans.
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"My work is very much about youth culture, downtown New York, and kids having fun," says McGinley, who first got interested in photography five years ago while a student at Parsons School of Design. Since then, his images have been showcased at galleries in America and Europe and in avant-garde magazines such as Index, for which he recently shot Diego Luna of Y Tu Mama Tambien. But by far the high-water mark of McGinley's career to date is "The Kids Are Alright," an exhibition of 23 of his photos currently on display at the prestigious Whitney Museum of American Art.
Although McGinley's masterpieces aren't everyone's cup of tea (the Whitney show includes a scene of the artist vomiting and one of a guy holding his erection), critics have praised the photographer for eschewing any of the wink-wink satire and sarcasm that dull so much of modern art. "I'm actually trying to go as far away from irony as I can. It's more about beauty than anything," says the currently unattached McGinley, whose good-looking but not flawless circle of friends is ever eager to perform for the camera. "Most of them are pretty fucking crazy, and they're cool with whatever I want them to do--it's that kind of collaboration."
As the buzz surrounding McGinley grows louder, it's no surprise that the fashion industry has come courting. But the young artist says he's turned down all offers. "It may be fine for someone else, but I'm just not interested in taking photographs of other people's clothes. My photos are about something that's really personal to me and the people that are involved in my life."
Simpson is editor of the gay and lesbian section of Time Out New York.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Liberation Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group
