These Blacklight Nudie Cards feature iconic drawings that were developed from Ryan McGinness' figure studies of various models.

The deck of cards, produced exclusively for The Standard Hotel, mimic stag party cards as filtered through McGinness’ particular perspective. This blacklight nudie deck is the first of its kind and contains 52 regulation cards (+2 Jokers, +2 Title Cards) and is printed in fluorescent inks.

The birth of modern-day nudie cards can be traced to16th century cards from India depicting the positions of the Kama Sutra. By the turn of the 20th century, during the Art Nouveau movement, erotic card decks appeared celebrating a renewed appreciation of the female form.

These decks evolved to include illustrations or photographs of nude models, flappers, burlesque singers, and pin-up girls. Because these cards were not legal at the time, they were often sold under the guise of art studies.

The Blacklight Nudie Cards are best enjoyed under black­lights. Blacklights emit only a frequency in the invisible range of 350-370 nm. The fluorescent inks used in the printing of these cards absorb this ultraviolet light and then re-emit it almost instantaneously. Some energy gets lost on the process, so the emitted light has a longer wavelength than the absorbed radiation, which makes this light visible and causes the ink to appear to glow.

McGinness says, "My use of fluorescent paint under the blacklight color spectrum is a strategy to force a singular time/space experience with the work. That is to say, the work must be experienced in person, and cannot be fully appreciated through reproductions via jpegs or printed catalogue pages." 

Read more about the project here and our interview with Ryan McGinness here.