Photo: Ryan McGinley
Ryan McGinley debuted his new “Winter” photographs at Team Gallery in the Lower East Side last week, and it must have been due to the wall-to-wall crowd at the opening that we didn’t even get a chance to read the press release until now.
The “groundbreaking” photographs depict thin, nude bodies in extreme winter conditions, something Team Gallery seems to think is the most innovative thing since, well, depicting nude bodies in more pleasant conditions (which McGinley will do in an aptly-titled show, “Fall,” opening on November 15 at Team Gallery’s Venice space).
“There is virtually no photographic or cinematic precedent for these works: to capture naked bodies in such extreme conditions took profound measures of precaution, audacity and sacrifice on the part of all involved,” reads the release.
Congratulations, Mr. McGinley, on taking “profound measures of precaution” to ensure your models didn’t catch frostbite while playing in the snow.
Installation view of Ryan McGinley’s “Winter” at Team Gallery (2015).
Photo: Courtesy Team Gallery.
But then the release casually drops this claim: “Impossibly, the unclothed bodies appear native to their wintry settings.”
Ryan McGinley, Plotter Kill Storm (2015).
Photo: Ryan McGinley
In fact, the appeal of the photographs is how not native the bodies seem in their “wintry settings.” Because what looks native in “hyper-limited palettes of whites, greens, blues and greys,” you ask?
Polar bears.
Natasha Meens, Belly Up Polar Bear Cub (2014)
Photo: courtesy of National Geograpic.
Seals.
Kanchana Thamodaran, Family on Ice (2014).
Photo: courtesy of National Geographic.
Competitive ice swimmers.
Wesley Thomas Wong, Rare Sitings – Russian Juggernaut of Joy (2014).
Photo: courtesy of National Geographic.
and residents of Nunavut territory in Northern Canada:
Western Nunavut resident dressed appropriately for the snow.
Image: Courtesy of rungloriarun.blogspot.com.