Synopses & Reviews
Marilyn Minter is the first book published about the work of the highly respected and influential contemporary artist Marilyn Minter. This retrospective publication features work from every period of Minter's career spanning nearly forty years. Minter is considered one of today's most important artists. Her perennially expanding reputation was widely established during the 1980s, when her work engaged formal aspects of painting as well as subject matter that remain central to her practice today. This comprehensive book reproduces in full color nearly every painting Minter has made along with a wide selection of her painterly photographs of the last several years. The book also includes the seminal and haunting Coral Ridge Towers series of black-and-white photos Minter took of her mother in 1969. Art historian Johanna Burton contributes a substantial essay that analyzes and elucidates all aspects of Minter's work. Burton's text is complemented by a lengthy conversation between Minter and painter and friend Mary Heilmann, as well as by Twenty Questions, a project assembled by Matthew Higgs and posed by a wide range of artists, curators, friends and others with a unique connection to Minter. The book's concept, design, and production have been vividly realized by the award-winning New York- and Amsterdam-based design studio, COMA. This publication-with its combination of beautiful reproductions of Minter's work, Burton's powerfully argued essay, and revealing interviews-firmly establishes Minter's important and central position in contemporary art history.
Synopsis
This first major book to focus on the highly respected and influential contemporary artist Marilyn Minter features work from every period of her career, spanning nearly 40 years. Minter's perennially-expanding reputation was already well established by the 1980s, secured by work that engaged formal aspects of painting with the unexpected subject matter that remains central to her practice. Today her paintings--and, increasingly, her photography, which also exposes the ultimate failure of fashion and glamour to hide either our flaws or the dirty underside of human beauty--are recognized as significant influences on several generations of artists, including many emerging stars. One of her glittery color images recently appeared at the 2006 Whitney Biennial and on the cover of its catalogue, and more of them in a recent solo show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This comprehensive retrospective catalogue reproduces in full color nearly every painting Minter has made, along with a wide selection of her painterly photographs. It also includes the early, haunting Coral Ridge Towers series of black-and-white photos of the artist's mother. A major and substantial new text about Minter's work by noted art historian Johanna Burton is complemented by lively, informative and insightful interviews, a rare opportunity to hear Minter in her own words. A lengthy conversation with painter Mary Heilmann is augmented by "20 Questions for Marilyn Minter," which were assembled by Matthew Higgs from those posed by a wide range of artists, curators and friends.