Ryan McGinness Works. (And Tom of BaseWords Works With Him)

Poster for the Ryan McGinness Works. show at Deitch. Click here for the zoom in-able version.

Ryan McGinness is a busy man. In the last six months he’s had shows in Milan, Toronto, Cincinnati, and Aspen, Colorado. This week he opens a show of new paintings and sculptures at New York’s Deitch Projects, his first there since 2005.

The show coincides with a book of the same name, Ryan McGinness Works. (Rizzoli, 2009), which comes hot on the heels of two other books of his work, the two-volume Aesthetic Comfort (Arkitip, 2008) and the limited edition No Sin/No Future (Gingko Press, 2008). The 296-page Works., descriptively subtitled “Paintings, Sculptures, Sketches, Drawings, Installations, Editions, and Other Stuff,” details his process and last three years of work, in images and through essays and interviews from a variety of contributors, including David Byrne, Peter Halley, and our own Tom Greenwood (of BaseWords).

Ryan McGinness Works. (Rizzoli, 2009)

Works. spread showing gallery shots of McGinness’s 2006 show Neveroddoreven, at Galerie Moriarty, Madrid

Works. spread of installation at Metrotech Commons, Brooklyn, 2006

Works. spread of studies for recent acrylic sculptures

Ryan and Tom set out three years ago to complete a 100-question interview, with no specific publication or vehicle in mind. But after the first 100 questions had been answered, Tom realized he had more questions. And fortunately, Ryan had more answers. So they decided to take it to 500. Now the “Q&A 500″ has finally found its home in Works. The introduction to the interview explains: Tom and Ryan are friends who work across the street from each other in Chinatown, which allows for frequent lunches and after-work drinks. The two have been periodically bouncing this questionnaire back and forth for over three years. . . The exchange reveals the friendly one-upmanship of two people who have spent a lot of time talking with each other. Tom’s questions are as revealing as Ryan’s answers, and a portrait of both develops.

The Deitch show opens this Saturday, just a few blocks from our New York studio (and Ryan’s), at Deitch. It will include a colossal, 45-panel mural, which Ryan has been making at a temporary studio in Brooklyn, as well as a series of mindblowing black-light paintings and black-on-black monochromes.

Works. is up at Deitch Projects, 18 Wooster St., through April 18 (extended from April 4). For more from and about Ryan, see ryanmcginness.com.

McGinness’s “temporary” studio in Brooklyn, with the pieces of the 45-piece mural installation to be unveiled at the Deitch show (photos: Shinya Nakamura)