MARILYN MINTER AT MOCA
SMASH - Provocative Videos + Stills
MoCA Westport’s Spring Exhibition Smash, opening April 2, will exhibit contemporary American artist Marilyn Minter‘s brilliant videos together for the very first time in a public institution. Minter’s sexy and outstanding work is an expression of feminism, pleasure, voyeurism, and beauty, blurring the boundaries between fine and commercial art.
Marilyn Minter was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1948 and raised in Florida. She obtained her BFA from the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1970 and an MFA in painting from Syracuse University in 1972. She currently lives and works in New York.
She created her first photographic series while at the University of Florida (with Diane Arbus’s guidance), and from there, she went on to become one of the most groundbreaking artists of our time. Minter is primarily known for her photorealistic paintings, videos, and photographs (which usually consist of sensual closeups of body parts seen through wet panes of glass, creating a glamorous, seductive, and voyeuristic scene all at the same time.) Through her work, which can place somewhere between figuration and abstraction, she explores popular culture and its perception of glamour and the female body. Throughout her career, she has experimented with imagery from the porn industry, which is hugely male-dominated, and created erotic works for women to enjoy. It is reflected in her incredible creations from 1989, and in the early 1990s, she began to explore and incorporate more glamour and fashion. A great example of her brilliance is when she created her first video, 100 Food Porn, to promote her exhibition at the Simon Watson Gallery in New York. She used the gallery’s advertising budget to promote the video on late-night talk shows, becoming the first artist to recommend an exhibition on late-night television.
Her video Green Pink Caviar, part of the show, was shown in the MoMA lobby from 2010 to 2011 and was also displayed on digital billboards on Sunset Boulevard and in Times Square. The video, created in 2009, shows female mouths and tongues licking candy and cake decorations off a transparent surface.
Minter’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions worldwide (one of the most recent being the Nasty Women exhibition held at Gavlak Gallery, in Los Angeles, in late 2020). It is also in numerous institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art New York, among many others. Her exhibitions at Lehmann Maupin (Hong Kong) and Regen Projects (LA) also became PROVOKR’s picks for Best Erotic Exhibits in 2018.
The show will be shown in both large-scale and smaller settings throughout MoCA Westport’s galleries. Ruth Mannes, Executive Director of MoCA Westport, stated, “We are honored to present these dynamic works together for the first time, at a moment when female artists are at the forefront of shaping and reflecting our culture. We have transformed our galleries for Smash, including unique lighting and video spaces designed just for this exhibition.” A custom-designed AMC Pacer automobile will be featured for the first time as well. Do not miss a chance to view Minter’s influential and revolutionary art in person. Smash opens on April 2 and runs through June 13, 2021.
