Art & Commerce

When Ryan McGinley started out he was primarily concerned with establishing his place in the fine art world. He created a hand-made book of his photographs and gave it to people in the art world whom he thought would understand what he was doing and appreciate it. Jack Pierson and Larry Clark got copies, so did I. He exhibited his prints in galleries, and in 2003 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in a landmark show that made him the youngest artist to have a solo show there. 

Shortly after that show opened, I remember sitting in a meeting at my space with Ryan and Judith Regan. At Harper Collins her imprint had launched huge best-sellers by Michael Moore and Howard Stern. Now she wanted to publish a big mass-market book of his work. Ryan was more interested in a serious monograph that would position his work in the context of the contemporary art world. Even at that early stage, he had a clear vision of what he was trying to achieve, and consequently his first major monograph was published by Jack Woody at Twin Palms, and featured text by Sylvia Wolf (with whom I had worked on Ryan’s show at the Whitney) and Vince Aletti. 

But I also encouraged him to consider editorial and advertising work as a compliment to what he was doing, especially if we could maintain the integrity of the imagery, if we could ensure that he was always taking “Ryan McGinley photographs” rather than bending to some art director’s concept. I introduced Ryan to Kathy Ryan, photo editor at the NY Times Magazine, and she commissioned him to do a series on Michael Phelps and the American Olympic swimmers prior to the 2004 Athens games. He also did a portrait shoot for Vanity Fair magazine of the Proenza Schouler designers, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, who had also gone to Parsons at the same time Ryan was there. Later he provided the album cover art for the Icelandic band, Sigur Ros, and subsequently, ad campaigns for both Levis and Wranglers. He even did a campaign for Dentyne gum. 

More recently, Ryan has shot some notable magazine cover stories for GQ, and Rolling Stone, profiling Brad Pitt, Rami Malek, Harry Styles, Lucas Hedges, and Elton John. 

There was a time when there was a divide separating “fine art photographers” and “commercial photographers.” But in the latter part of the 20th century, it was clear that Irving Penn and Richard Avedon were great artists, regardless of whether they were doing “art” work or “commercial photography.” Some of their best pictures appeared as assignment work. Today, art and commerce coexist; the line separating them hasn’t been blurred, it’s been eradicated.