RYAN MCGINNESS

WYSIWYG presents an overarching view of Ryan McGinness’ artistic oeuvre. Bringing together historical works with his most recent paintings, the exhibition showcases his continually evolving perpetual practice.

For more than two decades, McGinness has established a personal lexicon of icons that he continually references in his work. His iconography, both imagined and drawn from a slew of reference material, include everything from spiraling mandelas and skateboarders to mirrored hands and chandeliers hanging from the top of the canvas. Rendered in fluorescents and core colors alike, McGinness screenprints his symbols to create deeply-layered enigmatic compositions. Catch a glimpse of his painted cryptograms and you find yourself drawn in, look closer and delight in decoding the iconography, which unfolds like a non-linear story, crescendoing in every direction.

“WYSIWYG is a time-capsule as much as a dictionary, but also a marker of a new chapter for Ryan McGinness,” writes Julie Baumgardner, “When anyone, especially an artist, is secure in their fundamentals, space is made for evolution. Mark our words: dive deep in these works now to decode what’s soon to come.”

Ryan McGinness (b. 1972 in Virginia Beach, VA) received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University in 1994. While completing his degree, McGinness served as a curatorial assistant at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA.

McGinness has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Cincinnati Art Museum, OH; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Espai Cultural Caja Madrid, Barcelona, Spain; MoMA PSI, New York, NY; Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, and elsewhere.

His work has been included in group exhibitions at numerous international institutions such as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, NY; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA; Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, United Kingdom; Lille Métropole Musée d’art moderne, France; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; MoMA PS1, New York; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

McGinness’ work may be found in the collections of the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam; Amorepacific Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea; Cincinnati Art Museum, OH; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the New York Public Library, New York, among others.

The artist lives and works in New York, NY.

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WYSIWYG

Installation Views

Selected Works

Press Release