February 2023 marked the 20th anniversary of photographer Ryan McGinley’s seminal exhibition “The Kids Are Alright” at the Whitney Museum of American Art, which ran from February through May 2003. It was the 26-year-old’s solo exhibition debut, and the 20 photographs captured a particular place and time in New York City, in the shadow of September 11th, 2001 and the AIDS crisis; before the invention of Instagram and TikTok. It wasn’t just the latest downtown-meets-uptown youthquake salvo that reverberated around in the art world, but a photo exhibition that made McGinley a bona fide, post-millennial star—and shifted the culture.
At that time the Whitney was still in its Upper East Side location and “The Kids Are Alright” was the most talked about photo show at the museum since Nan Goldin’s exhibition “I’ll Be Your Mirror” in 1996. Overnight, Ryan became the superstar art photographer of his generation, documenting his decadent world. After him, this bohemian lineage basically slams shut with the onset of social media.
This week, the Art Angle presents an oral history of the exhibition and its influence featuring Artnet News style editor William Van Meter in conversation with McGinley himself, as well as artists Marc Hundley and Jack Walls; photography critic Vince Aletti, and the show’s original curator Sylvia Wolf.

An Oral History of Ryan McGinley’s ‘The Kids Are Alright,’ 20 Years Later

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Who are the rising talents in the art world poised for greatness? Discover them in ‘Up Next’, Artnet’s popular series of profiles introducing you to key visionaries on the verge of stardom. This month, we’re airing two special Art Angle episodes spotlighting two figures shaping their fields in innovative ways. Subscribe to The Art Angle wherever you get podcasts to hear both episodes, and visit News.Artnet.com to catch the latest up-and-comers we’re celebrating in ‘Up Next’.
Yung Ma is an international curator who has held positions at some of the world's most prestigious art institutions. In 2021 he was appointed senior curator at London's Hayward Gallery, and previously held positions at M+ in Hong Kong, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He served not once, but twice, as the co-curator of the Hong Kong Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and was the artistic director of the Seoul Mediacity Biennale in 2021. It's fair to say that Ma knows better than most what audiences want from museums, and his track record organizing acclaimed exhibitions of artists like Cao Fei, and a recent retrospective of Mike Nelson proves that he knows how to deliver. Artnet's London correspondent Vivienne Chow spoke to Ma about the changing tides within the realm of museums and his personal experiences at the forefront of contemporary art.

The Art Angle Presents: How Curator Yung Ma is Redefining Contemporary Exhibition Models

What is a connoisseur? Who can be one? What role do they play in shaping tastes of the art market and the large expanse of art history?
There's perhaps no better place to ask these kind of questions than at TEFAF, the many splendored Dutch fair where art, antiquities, and antiques take center stage. Each spring, the event returns to New York City and a swath of visitors—international and local, new and returning, celebrity and, well, not—flock to the storied Park Avenue Armory. Last week amid those festivities, as dealers sold every kind of treasure from ancient Roman sculptures to contemporary Korean paintings, Artnet and TEFAF hosted a panel  featuring three experts discussing the state of connoisseurship today, and how a new generation of collectors is approaching that field.
This week, listen to a recorded version of that lively conversation moderated by Artnet Pro Editor Andrew Russeth, joined by Adam Charlap Hyman, Principal at Charlap Hyman & Herrero; Eleanor Cayre, Art Advisor, Cayre Art Group; and Ebony L. Haynes, Senior Director, David Zwirner & Director, 52 Walker.

What 'Good Taste' Looks Like in 2024

Who are the rising talents in the art world poised for greatness? Discover them in ‘Up Next’, Artnet’s popular series of profiles introducing you to key visionaries on the verge of stardom. This month, we’re airing two special Art Angle episodes spotlighting two figures shaping their fields in innovative ways. Subscribe to The Art Angle wherever you get podcasts to hear both episodes, and visit News.Artnet.com to catch the latest up-and-comers we’re celebrating in ‘Up Next’.
Alexander Shulan has a knack for spotting emerging talents. The founder and curator of Lomex Gallery is a born-and-bred New Yorker who began the venture as a sort of "collaborative project" between himself and a group of artist friends. That lark turned into a full-blown commercial enterprise showing the likes of Robert Bittenbender, Emma McMillan, and Andrea Fourchy, and Maggie Lee. While the gallery's ethos has long been dedicated to showing new-New York artists, when the gallery moved from its original home in the Bowery to the new art mecca of Tribeca, Shulan has begun to expand his purview beyond "hyper-local" confines. In a roving interview with Artnet's Wet Paint columnist Annie Armstrong, Shulan discusses how the gallery is forging a new path in the ever-crowded art world.

The Art Angle Presents: How Dealer Alexander Shulan Is Building New Markets for Underrecognized Artists

There is a lot to unpack—literally and figuratively—in the Metropolitan Museum’s new Costume Institute show, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” which opens on Friday May 10.
It’s about nature and the cycle of life (and as it turns out, there is a lot about death). It also touches on chemistry, biology, mythology, and so much more, all told through the lens of fashion. Added to this litany of themes, the show also tells the story of The Met itself, and the goings-on behind the scenes. It’s about how archived garments are preserved and how they are disintegrating. It’s not just about clothes, but about how they were worn and who wore them. It tells the story of us.
It's a visceral exhibition of over 400 years of fashion that engages the senses. It can be a heady experience. There are the sounds of waves crashing, and birds calling, and poems being read aloud. There is textured wallpaper you can touch—and courtesy of the German artist Sissel Tollas, wallpaper you can scratch and sniff and tubes you can snort. Frankly, this portion of the exhibit kicks like a mule and is unforgettable, with scent being such a powerfully triggering memory force.
“Sleeping Beauties” was curated by this week’s guest Andrew Bolton, the Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, who previously helmed such blockbusters as "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty," "China Through the Looking Glass," and "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination," which were some of the most visited exhibitions in the museum’s entire history. Today’s fashion-exhibit-heavy museum landscape has a lot to do with Bolton’s successes, but with his trained anthropologist’s eye, he never fails to zero in on the intellectual and human connotations in the garments.

Andrew Bolton, The Reanimator: Life, Death, and Sleeping Beauties at the Met

We're sharing a special preview of Previously Unknown, a podcast from our friends at Independent New York.  Previously Unknown reframes and reevaluates what we think we know about contemporary art. 
In this segment from the latest episode, Artnet News Pro Editor Andrew Russeth moderates a discussion with Independent art fair founder Elizabeth Dee, curatorial advisor Matthew Higgs and artist Joel Mesler. In 2019, Mesler performed an act of radical generosity by painting portraits of visitors at the fair, to benefit the not for profit gallery White Columns. Mesler will return to Independent this year, to restage the memorable presentation with a series of new portraits made on-site, in honor of the 15th anniversary of the art fair. 
Tune in to Previously Unknown on your favorite podcast platform.

An Oral History of Ryan McGinley’s ‘The Kids Are Alright,’ 20 Years Later

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