At this June’s residency, I was encouraged by Oliver Wasow
to discover the work of Marilyn Minter. I checked out the book below from AIB’s
library before leaving Boston. One can approach Minter’s work from a variety of
angles, but at this moment I am most interested in considering how her work
tackles the dualities of attraction/repulsion and realism/fantasy. Since I’m
particularly interested in exploring the notion of sublime as the intersection
of absolute beauty (awe, wonder, etc) and terror (fear, ugliness, unknown),
Marilyn Minter’s work has acted as a launch pad for my research.
 |
Artist’s quote on glamour and its tricks:
“Everybody I know gets so much pleasure from looking at
glamorous pictures, movies, videos – but at the same time, you are always aware
that you are never going to live like that,
look like that, or be like that. You can get pleasure out of it, yet it can
make you feel very insecure. I think that a lot of my work is trying to
articulate what that insecurity combined with pleasure feels like. The sexy
underside? Well, that might be inherent in taking things apart because that is
where things start to get untidy and messy. So even though the glamour we see
in popular culture is so perfect and flat, when it starts to come undone
perhaps it gets sexier.” (Pg. 62)
Artist’s quote on the NYC
Billboards project:
"I'm
trying to make an image of what it feels like to look. I want to make a fresh
vision of something that's compelling; something that commands our attention;
something that is so visually lush that you'll give it multiple readings adding
your own history and traditions to the layered content. Some things make you
feel transcended; others make you feel slimed. I'm constantly looking for that
transcendent moment." (Pg. 36)
Interesting fact: I learned that both Jan Avgikos (current AIB
faculty member) and Marilyn Minter were part of an intellectual group in the
early 1990’s focusing on issues of sexuality, pro-sex feminism, and
pornography. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to do a group
critique with Jan this past June.
Website on Minter’s Billboard project: http://www.creativetime.org/programs/archive/2006/minter/artist.html
Video - Minter speaks on her process: http://www.creativetime.org/programs/archive/2006/minter/video.html
Green Pink Caviar Trailer: http://www.greenpinkcaviar.com/index.php
No comments:
Post a Comment