Ryan mcGinley - Celebrate life - FOAM Amsterdam

wow fucking gay!

William Eggleston's afterward from The Democratic Forest. It is an essay well worth reading in total.

They respect their work because they are told by respectable institutions that they are important artists, but what they really want to see is a picture with a figure or an object in the middle of it. They want something obvious. The blindness is apparent when someone lets slip the word 'snapshot'. Ignorance can always be covered by 'snapshot'. The word has never had any meaning. I am at war with the obvious.

I am afraid that there are more people than I can imagine who can go no further than appreciating a picture that is a rectangle with an object in the middle of it, which they can identify. They don't care what is around the object as long as nothing interferes with the object itself, right in the centre. Even after the lessons of Winogrand and Friedlander, they don't get it.

Ryan's an incredibly nice and down-to-earth guy--his work deserves all of the attention it gets... Chris

his personal attitude to life is not a factor in evaluating his simplistic work. try reading William Eggleston' afterword for Democratic Forest. Why are all the people naked? why is everything in the fucking center, Why are most of his pictures so repetitive? or did he just give larry a blow job and a mutual career boost?

Well, your attitude is certainly a factor in evaluating you--you launch hostile, unprovoked, condescending attacks on complete strangers. For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure Ryan can survive your disdain for his success--he'll go cry in his money, and you can post another hollow rant about how he shouldn't be successful because he doesn't follow your aesthetic guidelines or parrot Eggleston's work. The world's soooo big, it can handle both Ryan's fame and your obscurity.

you can keep your sarcasm but have you even looked at his work and how usual it looks? aside from the naked people what is there really?

Ryan's been a friend of mine since 2004--so, yes, I know his work. His practice is evolving, and he's starting to move beyond traditional portraiture (see his series Irregular Regulars). You want repetitive work, look at the students of Bernd and Hilla Becher. You suggest I keep my sarcasm to myself, yet you imply my friend has screwed his way to the top--before telling others to keep their sarcasm in check, please learn to modulate your own.

looking at his "work" which is repetitive and quite obvious, makes me question his positive reviews. I hope for a little more for such a lauded "artist." If his work is evolving i hope he can grow into his success. So just how did he get that show at the Whitney?