Ryan McGinness response

Most interesting quote:
"Why should I make shoes? Well I wear shoes so thats okay."
Ryan McGinness seemed to take his art seriously but not so seriously. His works are lighthearted and lightly conceptual. He wants to have fun with his work. His work is very visually pleasing and intricate. He is very much interested in design and sketching. At first glance the simplicity of the lines and figures made looks simple but then seeing the process and realizing that you could never make a symbol that perfectly represents something else, you understand the complexity of the whole work. That is very satisfying. McGinness's approach to art making and viewing changed for peice to piece but each starts out the same: with the sketch. He also said that he is not interested in making the viewer feel dumb.
Three words:
design, pop, art history
Most interesting work:
The work he did for VMFA was the most interesting to me. Its interesting to see which artworks he picked. They weren't really the most important or coveted they were just the ones he picked. Then it was great seeing the sketching process on how they became symbols. I found it interesting how he thought about art history. Its interesting to think about how art history isn't linear and that it is always building on its self. Working with and for a muesum to create this work is what brings it all together.
Answer to questions:
After moving to New York, do you find importance in your hometown of VA beach? (Not to offend) but do you find inspiration from coming back to Virginia specifically Virginia Beach?He said that he was interseted in how design communicated ideas simplicitcally. Even tough he was unaware of making a life in the art world based off of design he was inspired to create designs when he was in high school.

Your work for the VMFA is slightly humorous and very intelligent. A lot of your work is funny and slightly serious to me. How do you mix lofty, artistic ideas and still make them seem lighthearted, airy and often funny?
Ryan made it seem like he was never very serious. And now he is working on trying to gain more serious projects like the VMFA one. He said that you should only be and artist if you simply cannot deny being anything else. If you have to question being an artist then you just shouldn't become one. I think that since he has to be an artist he is going to make work that is interesting and kind of funny to him. Like his new women series that go up in strip clubs. funny times.

I also found it interesting that he admitted to doing screen printing "wrong". Or at least not how you are taught to do it. Its always refreshing that people admit to this.