RYAN MCGINLEY – MIRROR, MIRROR
2018-07-02Ryan McGinley has been working on an untitled project involving mirrors for the past three years. Inspired originally by instructional artworks by such divergent practitioners as Miranda July, Sol Lewitt, Rob Pruitt and Yoko Ono, McGinley soon realized that his proposed project would also allow viewers access to the kinds of private spaces that had figured so prominently in his work from the early aughts, namely the living spaces of New York’s stalwart population of bohemians.
For this project, the subjects were provided with a camera, a set of instructions, five rolls of 35mm film and twenty mirrors, all of which were delivered to their homes. The undeveloped rolls of film were then returned to McGinley, who sorted through the material and selected a single image to represent each participant.
The resulting photographs investigate how the camera functions as an increasingly ubiquitous mediator in the presentation of contemporary identity. These self-portraits transmit intimate information not only about their subject’s emotional states, but also about the construction of their idealized physical selves. The variables provided by choice (how much of the body is shown, how much of the self is shown) indicate that agency perseveres, even within the confines of prescription.
Opposite – Jade, 2018
Exhibition runs through to September 29th, 2018
Team (gallery, inc.)
83 Grand Street
NY 10013
