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Reviews: Ryan McGinness, Danziger Projects/Deitch Projects

By Donald Kuspit

The marginalia inscribed by Albrecht Dürer in the Prayer Book he illustrated for the Emperor
Maximilian, which are full of witty grotesquerie and tendril-like, hyperexpressive arabesques,
constitute perhaps the last grand statements of the genre. Ryan McGinness, as evidenced by
recent concurrent shows at Danziger Projects and Deitch Projects, revives the practice by making typographical flourishes and stylized shapes the kind traditionally confined to the edges of a page into his work’s central feature. In so doing, he suggests that there is no difference in either aesthetic value or emotional depth between supposedly peripheral doodling and grand central statement.

However, McGinness’s manner is rather more quixotic than Dürer’s: He dispenses with text
altogether in favor of baroque decoration, excited lines and rich colors converging in spontaneous pseudologos with a legibility all their own. Looking carefully into the tangle of shapes, one finds figures and scenes that suggest a narrative, and idea that’s confirmed by titles such as ToolsCelebrate Their Usefulness and Lucky Cows Drink Milk from the show at Deitch (all works 2005). McGinness is not just making ornamental abstractions: he wants to make a statement.

Unfortunately, though, the statements sometimes seem lost in the prettiness. McGinness claims that he wants “to communicate complex and poetic concepts with a cold graphic, and authoritative visual vocabulary,” yet while he can certainly boast a degree of technical expertise, his works are hardly cold. In the installation at Deitch, the radiant colors of the numerous tondos painted on and projecting from the walls made this abundantly clear. They give off a kind of dry heat—not exactly comforting but hardly examples of the clinical detachment to which the artist’s statement indicates he aspires.

In fact, a love of nature and a not so reluctant romanticism are detectable in many works, however street-smart their titles. McGinness uses titles as tongue-in-cheek disclaimers to defend his work against accusations of aestheticism or sentimentality, but he is an aesthete and a sentimentalist, as witness the beautiful Alia Iacta Est, which suggests a rich fantasy life and a romantic sensibility. Read the entire article here Source: artforum

McGinness is God

By Criswell Lappin

For those inclined to debate the line that separates graphic design from fine art, there is no
better case study than Ryan McGinness. Before publishing Flatnessisgod in 1999—the first of nine books—the 33-year-old artist received formal graphic-design training at Carnegie Mellon
University and participated in a curatorial internship at the Andy Warhol Museum, followed by
a six-month stint with Michael Bierut, at Pentagram. It was a tidy beginning to what would be
considered a successful design career by most standards.

But with Flatnessisgod, McGinness began his definitive passage out of the service industry (design) into the “self-service” industry (art). He makes no apologies for the reason he left the design profession: he doesn’t like to collaborate. While that attitude is probably shared by more than a few graphic designers, not many are brazen enough to admit or act on it. One reason McGinness is noteworthy to designers is that his highly stylistic approach consists mostly of
vector-based flat shapes that reflect his graphic-design experience.

That, in large part, is why McGinness has been a catalyst for the design/art argument: his art looks like graphic design. The fact that his work usually appears in traditional graphic media like books, installations and products only reinforces that perception. Metropolis creative director Criswell Lappin spoke to McGinness about the evolution of his work, his book Installationview (Rizzoli)—released this month in conjunction with solo exhibitions at Danziger Projects and Deitch Projects—the difference between design and art, and his thoughts
about the software company Adobe.


How has your work evolved from Flatnessigod to Installationview?
Installationview is a cross between an exhibition catalog and an artist’s book. In Flatnessisgod
I took advantage of the book format to make work specifically for the pages, but there were also reproductions of things that came from outside the book. This new book is the same idea, except in full color and using recent work—paintings from the last five years.


Is most of your work still silkscreened?
Yeah, layered silkscreens, and I’m also showing a lot of installations. The other component is the process. I’ve been frustrated with art books that show the final project but don’t provide any insight about how the piece materialized. I’m interested in revealing the process as well—sketches, notes, storyboards. It’s going to be a thick and juicy book. Read the entire article here Source: metropolis

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