Team Gallery presents a show of early work by Ryan McGinley. The photographs on view in this exhibition were made by Ryan McGinley in New York City from 1999 to 2003, a period defined by hopelessness for many Americans – synonymous with the onset of the Bush Era, 9/11 and its aftermath. These vérité images, which pre-date his famed “road trip” series, capture the exploits of the artist’s social circle, members of an outlaw creative community based in New York’s Lower East Side. This body of work – a significant addition to the legacy of American subculture photography forged by the likes of Peter Hujar, David Wojnarwicz, Philip-Lorca diCorcia and Nan Goldin – is characterized by McGinley’s idiosyncratic admixture of hopefulness and self-awareness, as well as his unembarrassed disclosure of the melodrama of youth, its inextricably intertwined joy and heartbreak: the artist shows us his debauched, frequently naked friends, laughing and weeping, taking drugs and having sex, tagging walls and pissing off roofs. Ryan McGinley "Early" will be on view until April 1 at Team Gallery, 83 Grand Street, New York. photographs by Adam Lehrer