Night Shift

Ryan McGinley turns his lens back towards the city that never sleeps to present his newest body of work, Night Shift. Expanding on his career-defining visual language, the project recodes the aesthetics of his early practice–the raw, energetic spontaneity of nude bodies traversing the American landscape–to arrive at the endless possibilities of a nocturnal New York in a brave new world. McGinley’s career spans more than two decades of artistic output. This latest series reflects on the intuitive point-and-shoot practice of McGinley’s youth: from his seminal photographs of the graffiti collective IRAK, to the fantastical mise-en-scène of his extensive cross-country road trips, and his continued activism in documenting the queer revolution. Night Shift weaves those unique historical threads into the fabric of now, moving from the daydreaming pastures to the realities of a concrete paradise. Shot between 9pm and 5am through Spring into Winter 2025, the series captures all five boroughs - east to west, up to down. Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island. It is nine to five, the other way around. Employing a slow shutter, long lens, and radio flash, McGinley creates luminous, hallucinatory scenes in which bodies and city become one. Neon, halogen, and brake lights paint airy compositions that evoke a state of pulsation, where city and subject dance through, around, and within. “This is my poem to New York City,” says McGinley. “A place where the rare quietness of the city can reveal itself as a playground for a body in motion.” From cherry blossoms emerging through cracks in the sidewalk at the dawn of Spring, to fire hydrants drenching the hot asphalt surrounding Yankee Stadium in the heat of summer, the work captures fleeting moments that traverse over time and seasons. McGinley focuses on locations that hold personal resonance: weathered waterfront piers, smoke spilling from manholes, the typography of an old autobody shop, graveyards that open onto skylines, train tracks that directly lead to the empire, and the textures of oxidation and decay that define the city’s patina. Night Shift oscillates between post-apocalyptic and satirical song, as the iconically idiosyncratic landmarks emerge as their own subjects throughout the series, including the K Bridge, Fort Greene Park, Lincoln Center, the Angel of the Waters at Bethesda Fountain, and an abstracted Cyclone on Coney Island. Bicycles, bodegas, sanitation trucks, and staircases become props to the interplay of grit and magic that is McGinley’s New York. Ryan McGinley (b. 1977) is a photographer based in New York City. His early photos displayed the unseen intersection of skateboard and graffiti culture with a strong queer focus. At the age of twenty-five, he became the youngest artist to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art. McGinley has spent more than a decade road tripping throughout the United States to create work that incorporates the human body within the American landscape. You can always find Ryan on the streets of NYC doing queer activism, fighting for LGBTQ rights. McGinley frequently has solo gallery and museum exhibitions around the world. A GQ profile declared McGinley, "the most important photographer in America."