Ryan McGinness’s two current New York shows are centered on women: “Women: Sketches & Solutions” at Gering Lopez and “Women: Blacklight Paintings & Sculpture” at Charles Bank Gallery. Bullett trailed the artist from one show to the next, covering the “broad” subject of women, with “no pun intended.”
From the article:
“I think it’s important to show your work,” he says. Later: “I’m doing, and I think it’s important to note, drawings of drawings. I’ve always found it valuable in developing solutions, in mathematical solutions, that you have to show your work, and it is therefore undeniable. The solution is undeniable.”
The problem is perception, and the perception of McGinness in the art world has been—well, rarely unfavourable, but rather flat. By drawing from life in a great, dated tradition, McGinness places himself in a far longer art lineage than Warhol’s (go back to Chauvet cavemen, go back to Paul Klee). He doesn’t worry openly about things like legacy or market value, only about whether his art will find a good home while also making a good-enough one for himself, his wife, and his adorable baby. (“I don’t think about art as an investment,” he says, when the market comes up. “As an artist, your best investment is you, so any money you make goes back into the art.”)
