We’re particularly thrilled to have the American photographer Ryan McGinley as our guest for mono.kultur #27, since McGinley’s colourful and vivid photographs capture the zeitgeist of a generation like no other. Celebrating the sweet and fleeting state of youth, his images are suffused with colour, light and energy. Naked kids climbing trees, running through the desert, rolling down hills, suspended in the air, diving into lakes, leaping through fireworks – there’s a lightness and carelessness and beauty to McGinley’s images that is utterly addictive. His powerful depictions of youth in the here and now are a raw and personal declaration of love to life with all its highs and lows.

The photographer was the youngest artist to exhibit at the prestigious Whitney Museum in New York and has been enjoying a stellar career, equally successful in the world of fine arts as with his commercial work that has won numerous awards.

In a refreshingly frank and honest conversation, Ryan McGinley talked with mono.kultur about his first ten years of an astonishing career, his memories of the late Dash Snow and why every day is an adventure.

Visually, the issue is as eclectic as McGinley’s photographs, employing no less than ten different fonts and just as many grids, not to speak of a panoramic overview of the first decade of McGinley’s career, from 1999 to 2011.

Interview by Martina Kix / Introduction by Kai von Rabenau / Photography by Ryan McGinley / Design by Eva Gonçalves & Kai von Rabenau

“I’m so happy with the piece. It is designed so gorgeous! I love the way the fonts change and the layout of the photographs.”
— Ryan McGinley

“Ah-mazong!”
— 10 Magazine

“Meanwhile you just, sort of, want to be him by the end of it.”
— It's Nice That

“But every issue of mono.kultur is special because each one is obviously made with so much care and attention, and enthusiasm for their subject. And for some reason that just feels like quite a precious thing.”
— What Katy Read