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| Untitled (Boys of Walthamstow) 2018Photography by Tyler Mitchell |
Tyler Mitchell in Conversation With Ryan McGinley
As Mitchell’s first monograph I Can Make You Feel Good arrives, the two photographers – who each explore the idea of liberation in their work – discuss image-making, skateboarding, and subverting masculinity
JULY 27, 2020
TEXT by Miss Rosen
The American photographers Tyler Mitchell and Ryan McGinley have risen to global acclaim for their dream-like imagery of youth and possibility. Their photographs are mesmerising meditations on a utopian state of bliss, offering the understanding that liberation from all that constrains us is not only possible but a fundamental necessity of existence. It is a viewpoint that led both artists to prominence at the outset of their careers: in 2018, Mitchell, then 23, was the first Black photographer to shoot the cover of American Vogue; 15 years earlier, McGinley, then 25, became the youngest artist to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
The July 28 publication of I Can Make You Feel Good, Mitchell’s debut monograph, is an intimate and powerful vision of Black utopia, bathed in the rich sun-soaked light which has become the photographer’s signature. It stands alongside The Kids Are Alright (2002), McGinley’s first handmade book, which captured the exploits of the artists, skaters, and graffiti writers populating New York’s downtown scene at the turn of the millennium, in an ongoing conversation about the power of beauty, freedom, and truth.
