Luckily caught the Ryan Mcginness display at PS1 on the last day it was shown. For some reason he has fallen off of my radar in the past couple of years, which is either because he hasn't shown as much or because my attention has been drawn elsewhere...either way it is a damn shame because his work is brilliant.
In college art classes it was beaten into our heads that one was either an "artist" or a "designer" and never the twain shall meet. Mcginness effortlessly proves this theory wrong. His flawlessly executed work bridges the gap between art and design.
One of the jumping off points for the work displayed at PS1 were skateboard graphics from the eighties. Anyone who read Thrasher magazine back in the day would be witness to the inspiration for the work...the iconic board designs of Powell-Peralta were smoothed out graphic-ified and made even more iconic in there simplicity by Mcginness.
Images that may have been in your skull for decades are given a freshness, allowing the viewer to relive the past and look at the present.
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