MARILYN MINTER

For the first time, the oeuvre of US artist Marilyn Minter (born 1948) is the subject of an extensive exhibition in Germany. Her works oscillate between painting and photography, often focusing on the themes of eroticism and femininity. The hyperrealist close-ups of seemingly glamorous images, (including lips, eyes and toes dripping in make-up) examine the increasing divide between the fictitious image of the body conveyed by the media and advertising and the real body itself. In a wide-ranging series made in 2007 it is Pamela Anderson who is the model. Excerpts from Minter’s “Green Pink Cavier” were chosen in 2009 by Madonna as the stage backdrop for her “Sticky & Sweet” world tour.

In Marilyn Minter’s work, pride of place goes to the complex relationship between body, photography and painting. Here, Minter exposes all our cultural inhibitions in dealing with sexuality and desire, the hyperrealist shots of high-gloss surfaces and sections of the body are both seductive and irritating at once. In the fragmented representation of lips, eyes, mouths and necks, decadence confronts beauty and the pitfalls of glamour collide with the fascination it exerts. Minter’s voyeuristic hallucinations seem both tempting and dangerous. Beauty here proves to be a brittle construct in which sensuality and selfdestruction are two sides of the same coin; flesh, yearning, sexuality and gender models are revealed to be commercial products. Moreover, Minter’s playful use of the clichés of the staged body is an experiment that affords unusual angles on the abstract beauty cult of advertising and fashion.