Ryan McGinley: Bestiality (Not That There's Anything Wrong With That)

Among all contemporary artists, Ryan McGinley has the best eye for--and access to--hot, frisky youths. His photographs of nude beauties of both sexes frolicking in nature and with each other may not be great art--but they certainly make you envious of the artist, who clearly is having a damn good time with his camera.

Classic McGinley: "Holding Hands" (2003)

He currently has exhibitions (through June 2) at both spaces of his gallery, Team, one of the holdout dealers still in Soho. I first stopped by the gallery's rather new annex on Wooster Street--and the pics in this exhibition, titled "Grids," were vintage McGinley, or at least as vintage as the work of an inchoate 34-year-old artist can be.

The photos are closeups of kids (teens to early 20s) at concerts, arranged in grids, the largest consisting of 80 faces in a 16x5 display. Many of the fans are bathed in the glow of stage lights, and their expressions are ones of pure rapture--they are in the church of late childhood: the rock arena.

Installation view of "Grids"

McGinley inarguably has a knack for capturing moments of pure bliss. And while I don't want to like his work and would prefer to be dismissive (out of jealousy for all the fun he's having, if nothing else), I often can't look away. Attractive kids, whose features span the array of post-racial America, evincing the joys of being 16, 17, 18? Not much to think about, but what's not to like? It's very easy on the eyes.

At Team's main redoubt on Grand Street, the thin, tattooed (and full-frontally nude) teens are there in all the photos, per the artist's SOP--but in this exhibition, they are joined by co-stars who add a beguiling twist to the McGinley formula: exotic animals.

Ibexes, boas, iguanas and lemurs are cavorting with their comely castmates against candy-colored backgrounds; a turkin and a porcupine are strategically placed to keep a pair of pictures rated as hard R instead of NC-17. Snakes slither in places where the sexually orthodox would disapprove.

In the most striking, borderline disturbing image, a marmoset clings to the pubes and penis of a heavily scratched and bandaged model; look closely (I did), and you'll see the creature's claws have a pretty good purchase on the dude's (lower) head.

What does it all mean? Does it matter? Nude teens+cute animals+major-museum-owned artist undoubtedly equals blockbuster sales.

But for those who insist on some sort of explanation, here's what the gallery's press release says:

"These photographs are studies in animal bodies, their strangeness and seductivity. As a collection, they highlight the similarities and differences between the various species’ anatomies, the familiarity and relative regularity of the human form providing a blank slate against which to read the animals."