Vive La Femme: Interview with Marilyn Minter
By Julee WJ Chung
Portrait of
Grit underpins Marilyn Minter’s success. Over several decades, her bold depictions of female sexual independence and expression have pushed an urgent discussion on how women do and do not own their bodies in the public sphere. Her iconic photorealistic paintings, which appropriate the glossy aesthetics of advertisements and mainstream visual representations of women, subvert subliminal tactics in stereotyping female beauty and sexuality, identifying the social and political structures that have embedded the stale, pale, still very male gaze across films, advertising and art worldwide. Minter’s first solo show in Asia opened at Lehmann Maupin Hong Kong in late August. I spoke with the artist on the exhibition’s first day about her new photographs and paintings, her process, as well as her will to uplift, empower and celebrate women and their social agency across the globe.
