A New System for Control
Ryan McGinness
March 1 - 15, 2023
Potted Plant Portrait (Acamar), 2022
Acrylic and metal leaf on canvas
64 x 51 1/4 in (162.6 x 130.2 cm)
COUNTY is pleased to present A New System for Control, a solo exhibition by Ryan McGinness featuring new works from two of the artist’s most significant ongoing bodies of work: Potted Plant Portraits and Mindscapes. From mis-aligned monstera leaves to mushrooms folding in on themselves, these works open before our eyes in layers.
As his title suggests, “control” is a central theme of these works, with all its attendant meanings, from social control to self-control to the “control points” used to make smooth vector graphics. In the Potted Plant Portraits, there is an inherent tension between the controlled environment of the contained pot and the natural impulse of hardy tropical plants to express themselves in lush, verdant growth. In Mindscapes, these same processes unfold allegorically in the interior space of the mind. And while McGinness uses a plethora of digital and analog art-making techniques, he almost always disguises his methods. As he explains: “Many of the silkscreening moves are evident only to those who know and appreciate silk screening. They become inside jokes... Tightly registered images may hide how many layers are used to achieve an effect. Purposefully mis-registered images make evident the fact that I am mechanically painting the images... Additionally, analog glitches and visual grit are carefully designed to misdirect the viewer. They look like mistakes, but are carefully constructed.”
When McGinness began exhibiting in New York in the 1990s, his work was often framed as an authentic expression of youth rebellion, due in part to its formal affinities with the graphic marks of taggers and the simplified imagery employed by street artists. But McGinness is as much a master auteur as a puckish subversive, teasing his viewers with sophisticated trompe l’oeil effects while hiding his hard work behind the art’s cool exterior.
In their mind-boggling mix of apparent illogic and concealed meticulousness, these paintings exhibit an ongoing push/pull of control and release, of technical rigor and psychedelic expansion. Each is a galaxy unto itself, containing worlds of experience, but also, in the artist’s words, “bananas for the viewer to slip on.”
Ryan McGinness is an important mid-career American artist. He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Aisho Nanzuka, Hong Kong; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Deitch Projects, New York, NY; Espai Cultural Caja Madrid, Barcelona, Spain; Harper’s Books, East Hampton, NY; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; MoMA PSI, New York, NY; Pace Prints, New York, NY; Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA; and Vous Etes Ici, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, among others. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA; Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, England; Lille Métropole Musée d’Art Moderne, Lille, France; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; MoMA PS1, New York, NY; Museum of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway; National Arts Club, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC.
McGinness’s work may be found in the collections of the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Amorepacific Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, MI; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, León, Spain; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; New York Public Library, New York, NY; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, and elsewhere. He lives and works in New York City.
Logan R. Beitmen