Book Review: Mirror Mirror
Ryan McGinley’s book, a companion piece to his show “Mirror, Mirror,” is, plainly put, a collection of nude selfies taken by people in the comfort of their apartments, one which seems to comment - deliberately or accidentally - on the self-obsessed quality of our current cultural moment. But within a few paragraphs of its artist-authored introduction, a thorny question is conjured which lends the work a deeper dimension: in the process of art’s creation, where lieth the greatest glory - in its conceptualization or its realization? For while the visual arts (drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, et al) are generally-speaking less collaborative than, say, music or film, you only have to think of Michelangelo and his crack platoon of paint-spattered assistants binding paint to wet plaster in the Sistine Chapel in order to modify our collective vision of the lone artist, grappling sweatily with his muse.
In creating Mirror Mirror, McGinley - a 40-year-old artist whose work has been featured in the Guggenheim and Whitney Museums - relied not upon well-trained (and paid) lackeys, but...click here to read the full article.