Tim and Dakota, 2004
If the name Ryan McGinley is mentioned, it’s likely that the first thing you think of is nude figures frolicking around in the natural world among colours so saturated and striking that you’d swear they were fake. Well, the colour is real, and the photographs are a result of the New Jersey-born photographer’s legendary road trips across the American countryside which occur annually in the summertime.
Nudity crops up constantly in McGinley’s early images – although arguably the raw nudity from his downtown Manhattan days is starkly different to the graceful, almost Renaissance-esque silhouettes of his more recent photographs. The difference between them being that one instance is staged, the other is not.
“The Kids Were Alright” features 1,500 never-before exhibited Polaroids and an array of previously unseen portraits and self-portraits taken between 1998 and 2003. It has been nearly two decades since these controversial images earned him a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, making him the youngest artist ever to have a solo show at the institution.
Scroll down to see ten of McGinley’s most confrontational and raw images from his early twenties. His Denver show runs until 20 August 2017.
Ryan (Head-Butt), 1999
Sam Ground Zero, 2001
Dan (Bloody Eye), 2002
Cum, 1999
Red Mirror, 1999
Puke, 2002
Agathe & Dash (Black Leather), 2001
Dash (Match), 2000
Having Sex (Polaroids), 1999