Ryan McGinness 'Project Rainbow' Hardcover Book

Description

Ryan McGinness is an international exhibiting artist whose work makes strong social commentary on iconography, language, and historical and contemporary … more Ryan McGinness is an international exhibiting artist whose work makes strong social commentary on iconography, language, and historical and contemporary symbolism. McGinness' work consists of an amalgam of icons and symbols in which originals do not exist. Instead, his graphic drawings and personal iconography are replicated, recontextualized, and materialized infinitely across a range of media-from paintings, prints, and installations, to skateboards, clothing, and videos. In 1999, he received critical acclaim for his first book, "flatnessisgod." Since then, many additional books of his works have been published.

In 2003 Ryan McGinness created a limited edition version of his artist s book, Project Rainbow, silkscreening 300 copies with unique and distinct covers. The interior of the book takes the viewer on a journey deep into the layered silkscreen compositions inspired by the simultaneous simultaneous solo exhibitions, ''Ryan McGinness: Project Rainbow'' at 222 Gallery in Philadelphia and ''Ryan McGinness: Worlds Within Worlds'' at Deitch Projects in New York in the Fall of 2003. Every detail of these works is revealed, from the texture and flaws of the paper to the dynamic forms created by an endless ''rainbow'' of inks and silkscreened layers. This book takes the viewer on a journey into the details of McGinness’ layered silkscreen compositions. Printed four color offset within. The full bleed full color images made specifically for this publication reveal the artist’s almost fractal-based world-within-a-world-view of rapidly replicating and mutating design elements in an abstract landscape.Unique Silkscreens on the front and back covers, signed and numbered 163/300
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'I'm trying to communicate complex and poetic concepts with a cold, graphic, and authoritative visual vocabulary. I concentrate on shape, line, color and composition to communicate within simplified picture plane. As such, the work resides somewhere between abstraction and representation. At the essence of our being is the need to know and the need to understand. I am interested in our need to read into and interpret-to make sense of chaos and give meaning to seemingly abstract forms. This interpretation involves an egocentric faith in the fact that there must be a meaning for us to understand. We surrender our logic to the belief that answers do indeed exist, and so, by default, we invent them. With my work, interpretations are not absolute, but guided, to allow for multiple reads. This allows the viewer to bring to the work his own history, memories, and knowledge to find a personalized meaning.'

-- Ryan McGuinness, 2005 less