Stopped by Ryan McGinness’ studio this past Sunday. While the freedom of being done with my show was allowing me to wander aimlessly around lower Manhattan, Ryan is deep in the trenches, in the last few days before an enormous installation at the large Dietch gallery on Wooster, for his show opening this Saturday, March 7th. He was remarkably calm, likely because much of the artwork was completed and now being prepped for transport to the gallery in the coming days. Always so prepared, this guy! Without going into too much detail and spoiling any treats he’s preparing this week, I’ll just show you some of what’s happening in his studio leading up to the show.
Here, McGinness is standing in front of some huge panels with detail and layering nearing excess. Each panel is covered, saturated - whatever you want to call it - with layers of Ryan’s nearly infinite iconographic language, ranging from shapes representing tools used at the studio, graphic shapes depicting themes Ryan’s explored in the past, from skateboarding to hand gestures, elaborate curves, lines, circles and beyond. Other icons are simplified graphic re-tellings of classic pieces of art, including works by Magritte, Warhol, Duchamp, and archetypal artistic subjects themselves, like the graphic ‘Madonna With Child’ that shows up. A stylized ‘Mona Lisa’ is tucked in the layers, a nod to an Anton Corbijn photo of Ian Curtis is lurking in the shapes. All handled with complementary tones of the panel’s base color. They look great - I’m really looking forward to seeing them installed.
Ryan is also working on a group of new sculptures, and while he was still deciding how they’ll fit in, he is quite far along with the intent of the work. ‘Beauty in Non-Beauty’ or something along those lines, as he explained.
Another aspect of Ryan’s show I’m looking forward to is the series of fluorescent paintings he’s including in this show - they’ll be installed in an area of the gallery only lit by black lights. It’s something which he debuted in Toronto last year I believe. I better go Google that. (...) Ooops, no, it was in Cincinnati last year that I was thinking of. See, I coulda changed that, but I’m keeping it REAL with you, reader! Anyway, I’ve seen the photos but I’m sure they don’t do the installations justice - you can’t really photograph fluorescence. In person, I think it’s going to look like a crazy phreak-out.
Ryan’s show opens this Saturday at the Dietch Gallery on Wooster street. Maybe you’ve seen the posters in your own wanderings around lower Manhattan, but if not, here’s the poster online (interactive! Zoom in and out!) and the info for the show.
Bonus photo for the screenprinting heads -
Posted by Bill McMullen on March 04, 2009 at 01:53 AM
