February 11, 2003
More thoughts on McGinley's photographs
I amended my previous thoughts on the McGinley exhibition at the Whitney in an attempt to flesh out why I didn't like it. I'd be very happy to hear comments from anyone who has seen the show. These are relatively unedited--I didn't look at them beyond hitting the period key on the last sentence--so I don't really consider this a review, per se. Like you care. Onward.
It's difficult to critique the work of someone who is twenty-four, because at this moment the arc of his career starts with birth and ends at baby's first steps. Juvenile is the word that comes to mind when confronted with an unaesthetic dead-on portrait of a naked boy masturbating, a close-up of semen stains on light blue pants, or a holiday picture of friends out surfing. Some of these are 'early' McGinley, circa 1999, so let me say that redeeming qualities are to be found in a few of the more recent pictures. Lizzie is balanced mid-stride, nude. The contrasting innocence of her young face and bashful pose with a mature body is neatly paralleled: behind her, the frame is vertically bisected by a graffiti-covered wall that sports the outerspace wallpaper of a child's bedroom. One kid, idling on a train track and sporting a scruffy beard, has exceptionally clear eyes that pierce the lens and grab the viewer. However, much like his oft-mentioned artistic forebears--Nan Goldin (who will soon have an exhibition on view at Matthew Marks gallery) and Wolfgang Tillmans--McGinley needs an editor to separate these diamonds of effortless beauty from a rather large patch of rough.
The work of Goldin--and to a lesser extent, Tillmans--depends largely on a deep trust between subject and photographer, a trust that I imagine McGinley is still attempting to build. However, there might be a hitch in that process. The exhibition brochure tells us that his subjects 'perform for the camera and expose themselves with a frank self-awareness that is distinctly contemporary. The camera is ... an accomplice in the construction of the world they wish to create for themselves.' McGinley's subjects are too invested in McGinley the photographer, and the artifice is apparent in the final product. A viewer removed from the scene of these 'constructions' will read them as style, not art.
Have we now crossed a threshold? Does Goldin's fame preclude McGinley's ability to capture the tender, fleeting moments she photographs? Her subjects look away from the camera because they are engaged with life. His look away because they hope to be pictured as so engaged. The difference is slim, but one that separates the memories that last from those that