THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

Every summer since 2005, Ryan McGinley has left New York to hit the open road.  He brings along a young cast of guys and girls, all willing to take off their clothes, run, jump, swim, fall, and end up entangled in one another’s limbs, while McGinley shoots away with his Leica like the great chronicler of the perverse American pastoral.  This past summer was no exception.  Driving out west in a Ford E350 15-passenger van – with a 12-foot trainer attached – filled with six models, McGinley and his crew braved badgering cops, flash lightning, defective fireworks, nosy neighbors, frostbite, and more than a few on-the-road imbroglios.  “I’ve always been interested in photographers that have made work across the States,” the 31-year-old McGinley says.  “Richard Avedon’s In the American West, Robert Frank’s The Americans, and movies like Easy Rider [1989].”  McGinley’s work has always been about getting out into the world.

McGinley/Interview