Summer always seems a time of optimism. The season ruled by youth and warm intentions. The season that, as we grow older, we fasten the nostalgic lock around and bar our Shangri-Las. Ryan McGinley's vivid photographs celebrate these stories of summer vacation with the sweet, simple directness of a folk song.

The deeply colorful photos portray twenty-somethings in the buff: a testament to this generation's free love. The landscapes of wide, vast, golden prairies stimulate adventure and wanderlust. The skies are open and encircling, at their brightest, when the sun is high and full. In one photo, a girl stares past the camera with tender awe: the sky behind her radiant and rich. Another picture shows a body freefalling from the sky at dusk, as if suspended, floating absently in a sea, with nowhere to go really.

And every subject seems excited by pure potential and the possibity of tomorrow. That's what these photos are about: the exhilaration of being footloose. They're about friends connecting and celebrating each other. They're about perpetual hope. Even in an inhospitable art world. They're about grace and freedom. Even if it's as fleeting as ever. They're about legible landscapes and the earnestness of youth.

--Jolene Torr

(*Images, from top to bottom:  Ryan McGinley, Spring and By Summer Fall, May 9 - June 21, 2008; Ratio 3, Blue Falling, 2007-8, chromogenic color print, 20 x 24", image courtesy of Ratio 3, San Francisco.  Ryan McGinley, Spring and By Summer Fall, May 9 - June 21, 2008; Ratio 3, Running Field, 2007-8, chromogenic color print, 30 x 45", image courtesy of Ratio 3, San Francisco.  Ryan McGinley, Spring and By Summer Fall, May 9 - June 21, 2008; Ratio 3, Laura (Thunderstorm), 2007-8, chromogenic color print, 16 x 24", image courtesy of Ratio 3, San Francisco.  Ryan McGinley, Spring and By Summer Fall, May 9 - June 21, 2008; Ratio 3, Dakota's Crack-Up, 2007-8, chromogenic color print, 11 x 14", image courtesy of Ratio 3, San Francisco.)