Ryan McGinley
New Jersey-born Ryan McGinley studied graphic design at New York's Parsons School of Visual Arts. In 1999 he sent 100 magazine editors and artists he admired a 50-page book of photographs he had produced on his desktop computer entitled The Kids Are Alright. The book consisted of exuberantly bacchanalian images of his friends in New York City. In these images, fellow artists like Hannah Liden, Dan Colen, Dash Snow and Emily Sundblad masturbate, roll joints, tag walls, and scamper naked in the woods. Like Nan Goldin and Larry Clark, McGinley shot intimate portraits of friends far on the margins of social acceptability. But the humanity and poetry of his predecessors' work came from the pathos, pain and gallows-humor in their images, whereas the grittiness in McGinley's photographs glowed with the exuberant bliss of being young, hot and acting out. The day that Index magazine received the book, they called McGinley to fly to Berlin and shoot for editorial.
In 2003, McGinley was the youngest artist (at age 26) to exhibit for a solo show in the Whitney Museum of Art. The tone of the 20 large-scale color prints presented in the show, as part of the Whitney's 'First Exposure' series showcasing emerging photographers, was described by Holland Cotter in a New York Times review as 'relaxed and playful, as if the world were on recess'. In an art world and mass culture pathologically obsessed with youth, McGinley's well-crafted and carefully selected images actually did what photography claims to do - they captured fleeting moments. His models were not professional kids paid to produce some simulacrum of youthful cool. Instead, they were actually members of that blessed demographic, and so was he.
As McGinley matures, he is proving that he was less a fleeting child star than a genuine art prodigy. The physical energy, contagious joy, and beauty coinciding with grime from his debut series remain consistent presences whether he is photographing Olympic swimmers for the New York Times magazine (a series exhibited during the summer of 2004 at Queen's PS1, the Museum of Modern Art's satellite space), kids in an adult summer camp setting that he constructs and orchestrates, or Morrissey performing. McGinley's work is featured in Vitamin Ph, Phaidon Press's international survey of the best of contemporary photography. In January, McGinley will present at Manhattan's TEAM gallery twenty pictures selected from the multitude that he has taken during three years at roughly one hundred Morrissey concerts.
ANA FINEL HONIGMAN: How would you describe your aesthetic?
RYAN MCGINLEY: Whenever anyone asks me what I do, I tell them I make portraits of people. When they ask what kind, I tell them to imagine mixing nudism, sports photography, and vintage pornography. When you mix those three things, you can come up with an idea of what my photographs looks like.
AFH: How differently do people respond to your work in a country where nudity is seen as normal, like in Germany for example?
RM: I think Germans invented nudity. I love that you can go to parks in Germany and see women and men sunbathing completely nude. But when it really comes down to it, a nude photograph is a nude photograph, in any part of the world.
AFH: The elderly seem to wax over there.
RM: That's scary. I can't stand when people wax or shave their pubic hair. Before I do my shoots I always tell my friends not to trim. It drives me nuts when I get the photos back because it looks so unnatural. It looks like they did it for the photo.
AFH: Is this aversion to over-grooming part of your fascination with the seventies, an idyllic era when erotic bodies were more natural?
RM: That's what I want my photos to look like. I'm interested in the bohemian spirit of the late sixties and early seventies. Free love, you know? I love the idea of streaking and of happenings. I love people hanging out nude.
AFH: You're part of a tight-knit group of friends who are also well-known and well-shown artists, like Dan Colen, Dash Snow and other people.
RM: Dan and Dash and I have been best friends since we were teenagers. Dan and I met when we were sixteen because we both skateboarded. I lived in Ramsey, New Jersey and Dan lived a few towns over in Leonia. We became friends instantly since we were both also interested in art. We used to go sketch nude models in this church that held life-drawing classes together. I was also talking silk-screening classes as an extracurricular activity and jewelry-making and pottery in my high school. There were two art teachers there. One was very strict and would make us sit and render still lives for hours. It was torturous. The other teacher was really into pottery and sculpture and she really encouraged us to experiment with art. We would always try and make bongs and sneak them into the kiln but she wasn't dumb. She would destroy them and claim the 'Kiln God' blew them up. Basically Dan and I would hang out and I would drive him around since he was a year younger then me. We would always show each other our drawings and paintings and talk about wanting to get into Cooper Union because it was free. We both got rejected.
AFH: Have any other art practices directly influenced your current work?
RM: When I was in high school I loved looking a the photos in National Geographic. That magazine has had a great influence on my work. My school had an archive of every issue that existed. I would look at them obsessively, color-copy them, collage them, photocopy them, draw from them, enlarge pictures. It was the first time nudity was available to me in a way that wasn't pornography. It was accepted, it was natural. It was mostly African tribes. You know, pictures of women carrying baskets on their heads. I would stare at those photographs for hours and just be fascinated by them. I had no interest in photography at the time. I don't think I even thought about how they were made. It was like they just magically appeared.
AFH: Who are the people you select to bring on your trips?
RM: An important part of my work is that I'm working with friends of mine or friends of friends. It's important to me that everyone I photograph is an artist. Painters, actors, musicians, designers. You know, creative personalities. They are people I meet in New York or on my travels around the world.
AFH: Do you need to like their work to want to work with them?
RM: No.
AFH: Do you need to like someone's work to be friends with them?
RM: No. I have lots of friends whose work I don't like and lots of friends whose work I really like and there are lots of people I don't like whose work I really like. I was thinking of this the other day when I encountered someone who I despise, but I like their work so much.
AFH: Is this someone older? I find it interesting when you meet art-icons whose work you feel intimate with but they are completely impossible to access.
RM: The person I am thinking of is my age, but I have felt that way with a few older artists too. Most older artist I know are very sweet and supportive but there are a few who are total assholes. I hate that I like their work but sometimes it's so good and you have to separate the person from the art.
AFH: Look at it like it's already history, right? As we were just discussing, a few of the people you started off photographing early on are now known in their own right. How does that change the way the photographs are seen and are you concerned that facts or assumptions about some of your models' lives will taint the way your images are viewed?
RM: Well, I always feel that once the photograph is made, circulates, is seen and becomes a well-known picture it takes on a life of its own and the person sort of divorces themselves from the image. It's not them anymore. It becomes an image that is a representation of my work, and my world. I feel that the way I photograph people, and the images that I am choosing, are so specifically my vision that each photograph, when seen in the context of my body of work, is less and less about the person. They become a character in the world I create for them.
AFH: On the topic of artist models, how has drawing from the figure influenced your way of working as a photographer?
RM: I have always been fascinated with nudity. And though life-drawing is not part of my work, I enjoy it. I am completely fascinated by the human body. It will endlessly fascinate me forever. Any time I get to look at someone with their clothes off, that's it - you have my attention. Regardless of who the person is or what context it's in. It can be someone posing nude for a drawing class or someone in a magazine or in a porno or a woman giving birth.
AFH: Does it matter to you whether your subjects bodies are beautiful or not?
RM: I have a specific sort of person I'm interested in. With girls, it's a sort of the girl-next-door. The girl I want to photograph has to be wholesome-looking but she also has to be sort of the girl who looks innocent on the surface but inside is very mischievous. The guys need to be lanky.
AFH: A nerd?
RM: Not really a nerd, but awkward. And rebellious. American. I like guys who are a bit athletic and alternative. I am also interested in kids who have decided to move to cities. Everyone I photograph lives in a city. It's an important decision and tells you a lot about a person. Especially moving to New York.
AFH: No native New Yorkers?
RM: Even if you were raised in New York, you have something of this personality, because there was a reason your parents moved there and that affects you too.
AFH: You inherit balls, you mean?
RM: For sure.
AFH: So why do you take them out of the city to photograph them?
RM: I like the idea of taking people outside their element to photograph them. They loose themselves. We spent two to three months together all day everyday. We are naked together each day. We are creating a life that doesn't exist. My photographs are my fantasy life. They are like the movies of my life. I mean, everything in my photographs happens but it happens because I make it happen.
AFH: How much doctoring of the final images do you do?
RM: Most of the photographs are pretty straightforward and direct. I use a lot of amateur cameras because that is the aesthetic look I'm going for. Using those cameras, lots of bad things happen to the negatives. There will be long scratches, dust and hairs on the pictures. I find these imperfections very distracting to the image so I'll clean them up. Each picture is sacred to me. I spend months editing a large body of work down to a small selection of images. It's important for me that those photographs look exactly as I want them to look. Overall, though, I'm not a Photoshop wizard.
AFH: Has your aesthetic changed over the years you've been photographing people?
RM: The aesthetic look has remained the same. The pictures still look like documentary photographs. Grainy, lo-fi, you know, they are still shot with a 35mm camera. Idea-wise they have evolved. When I first started making photographs I was documenting a scene. It was about what was going on. Now it's something different. It's more like making a movie.
AFH: When looking at art, like at the big fairs, are you mostly drawn to photography?
RM: No, everything but photography. When I go to art fairs, I start at A1 and follow the grid so I don't miss anything. I have a digital camera with me and my headphones on. I like to have a soundtrack when I'm looking at art. I make sure I take pictures of everything I like. When I get back to New York I give the camera to my assistants who make printouts for me. I have all these little books now of each art fair I've been to.
AFH: I heard that you do a lot of research before you start your trips.
RM: Other than researching locations to shoot and using mapquest, I make inspiration books. I'm constantly being visually inspired and I think it's important to take your inspiration with you. I love searching for photographs. I'm an image collector. I love going to the picture file at the New York Public Library and researching topics of interest. I love searching the internet for hours and printing out photos. It's great how one site leads you to another and you never know what kind of pictures you might come across. I'm constantly tearing pictures out of magazines. I make color copy books before each of my trips. This helps me decide what kind of photos we will make, it's sort of a starting point.
AFH: Are you an authority figure on these trips?
RM: I am definitely the boss. I organize the trip, I pay for the gas, the food, the motels. I write the checks and I'm the one that, when we get busted for being naked, raises his hand and says 'This is all my fault.'
AFH: You are team leader.
RM: Right, that's it. I say 'This is what we are doing today and I packed a lunch for everybody.'
AFH: Are most of the people fully confident or have you had occasions where people have been surprisingly self-conscious?
RM: Most people are very comfortable; they know what they're getting into. I describe to them beforehand what we'll be doing. All the people who come on my trips get comfortable after the first day of shooting. What I always do for the first shoot is take everyone out at night under the moonlight. Everyone is always a little nervous about taking their clothes off the first time. So for the first shoot they all get naked in the dark we go for a walk. The only way they can see where we are going is with the flash from my camera. The models get to see each other nude for a split second every time the flash goes off.
AFH: Are you also naked?
RM: Yes I'm also naked. I'm the first one to get naked, right away. I have to set the standard for the group. After that, everyone becomes more comfortable. By the end of the second night, they don't even want to put their clothes back on.
AFH: Do you ever show those photographs from the first night?
RM: So far, no. I'm very specific about what I show. I love making photos in the dark though because it's such a pleasant surprise when I get them back. I never know what I'm getting. It's like Christmas looking at those rolls. Those are just part of the process. It's a building block.
AFH: How do you select what you show? Do you edit with your gallery or the curator of wherever you are showing?
RM: No way, never, no! I don't let anybody edit with me, ever! Editing is where I create my world. It's where I decide how I want people to look and make decisions about composition and color and body language. It's about my decisive moment. When I shoot these pictures I can have assistants and interns and people helping me but when it comes to editing it's all about me. I sit alone in my studio for months going through picture after picture. When I see a photograph I like I pull it. After I'm done editing I'll put them all up covering the walls. I live with them. I listen to music, drink tea, water my plants, watch movies, all with them in my peripheral vision. Over time it becomes obvious which ones I like and which ones don't work. Once I narrow it down to a smaller selection I'll scan them and make color copy books that I give out to a select group of people - friends, curators, artists, my gallery. After a while it becomes very obvious which are the important photos.
AFH: Do you keep all the rejects?
RM: Well, yes and no. I keep all the negatives. My studio is like the Dewey Decimal System. It's very easy to locate a photograph. But when I'm editing the small quick-prints I tear up all the rejects. Surprisingly enough people have gone through my garbage to try and steal photos! I tear them up into small pieces and then when the garbage is full of photographs I pour a bottle of soda into it so they all stick together. I have to respect the privacy of the people I am photographing.
AFH: Not to depress you, but what happens when you die? Are you worried about your legacy, how you are seen, if these rejected images will be put on the market?
RM: After Steven Parrino died in his motorcycle accident, Bob Nickas asked me whether I had a will. After that I thought, 'I ride my bicycle around New York all the time and almost get hit by cars everyday!' I always seem to find myself in precarious situations. So I wrote my will and I made very specific instructions for what can and can't be shown. I shoot many photographs to arrive at one image I'm happy with. The other photos are just part of the process and should never be seen. After reading about so many photographers, like Arbus, Warhol or Mapplethorpe, and seeing how their work has been handled after their deaths, I've gotten a good idea of what I do and don't want displayed. I don't want a gallery to show unreleased work after I die. Especially if someone else is choosing the work. That's not my style.
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