Marilyn Minter: Unbelievably wild
Marilyn Minter in her New York studio. Photo: laif
A woman is climbing stairs. Her bare feet are stuck in highheels studded with sparkling stones. It could be the snapshot of a paparazzo or an advertisement. But the heel is filthy, maybe through a puddle, every single bead of water can be seen. And so the picture rather tells the story of a modern Cinderella, which seems to have strayed from the path. It comments on a money, glamor and status-obsessed society, for which life unfortunately has one or two puddles. In her realistic paintings, which look almost like photos, the New York artist Marilyn Minter captures the moment in which flawlessness is subverted by reality. "Art lets light fall on the side of life that no one else holds on to, because they are not perfect and show that everything can fall apart at any moment," she says. Marilyn Minter is 62 years old and has just moved into a new studio in the Garment District, the neighborhood of textile retailers. The loft is cleaned up. Concentrated assistants work on several giant images of women.
For 20 years Marilyn Minter was ignored - or panned
"Pink Eye" (2005)
The new landlord sent Orchids this morning. To move in. What the otherwise rather burschikose artist ecstatic. Her red bob hairstyle looks casually unkempt. Except for fire-red lipstick she is unvarnished. Until recently, her nine-member crew worked in her private loft in SoHo, where she has been living since the mid-1970s. For the first time in all these years there is now a spatial separation between art and private life. "And there is no more color on the shower towels," says Marilyn Minter. The success was slow in coming. For more than 20 years, phases alternated, in which the artist was either completely ignored by criticism or was torn apart. Because she used pornographic motifs, which did not belong to an artist. Or because she had the audacity to put on television a truly artistic, 30-second commercial in 1989 to promote her work.
"Rosary" (2006)
Minter earned her living as a teacher during this time, with her art she only got it on a pocket money. Your only fans: friends and colleagues. And then the Durchburch came, completely unexpected. Out of the blue, a curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art contacted her. Joshua Shirkey had become aware of Minter's work through a small gallery exhibition and in 2005 made her the first solo exhibition in a museum. That was the initial spark for Minter's career. A year later, her paintings were displayed on giant billboards in Manhattan's Chelsea gallery district as part of an art event. American fashion designer and trendsetter Tom Ford hired the artist as a photographer. Madonna, one of Minter's collectors, showed her 2009 film "Green Pink Caviar," in which a tongue treats viscous liquids on a pane of glass. There have long been waiting lists for their work, for which collectors pay up to $ 400,000. Alone, Marilyn Minter could hardly produce more than five pictures a year, for which she shoots digital photos as a template. She hired assistants to apply paint colors in multiple layers and dab the last layer with her fingertips. This makes her one of the few artists in the world to operate a factory like many of her successful male colleagues.
The images of Marilyn Minter seem to want to burst with femininity
Photo: Aubrey Meyer
She makes a positive contribution to her late break-through: "For fifteen years I was in a kind of coma, and for the next ten years I was told that I had nothing to offer," says Minter. "When the so-called success came, I had the right tool, I just do my job, as always, and being up tomorrow can change tomorrow." Since the beginning of her career, Marilyn Minter has shaken the taboo that women in the arts kept a long time from experimenting with erotically charged images. Her paintings seem to be bursting with the femininity and colorfulness she achieves with enamel paint on aluminum plates. As a rule, they show more than most people want to see: hair that sprouts around the belly button. An impression that a stocking has left on the leg. Only when lipstick leaves marks on the teeth, it becomes exciting for the artist. Something is only really sexy, if it has something untidy, says Marilyn Minter. An aesthetics that probably also feeds on the biography of the artist: In her early 40s, she has "some catastrophic relationships" behind her. Years that were determined by cocaine and alcohol, as well as two withdrawal cures.It was the wild 70s in New York's East Village, when it was almost a good thing for artists to take drugs.
I am responsible for the artistic vision, the execution of the motives is done by my staff
Marilyn Minter grew up in Louisiana. Even the mother was a drug addict, the father was a player and drank. When Marilyn Minter studied art at the University of Florida and photographed her drugged mother in 1969 for her celebrated series "Coral Ridge Towers", which always valued her make-up, but spent most of her time in bed, her fellow students were shocked. Minter realized then that their reality did not have much in common with the rest of the world. She dreamed of New York, the city of free spirits. Because she did not trust in Manhattan with her southern accent, which is barely audible today, she first studied at Syracuse University in the state of New York. With her first husband, a graphic designer, she then ventured to New York City. But the couple soon broke up. A wedding ring does not wear the artist until today. Only the tattoo of a ring graces her finger. She recently had two M & Ms tattooed on her forearm. The M and the inverted W on the chocolate beans stand for Marilyn and William. Minter has been married to the former stock trader for 20 years.
Marilyn Minter: "Being happily married is work enough."
"Triple Bubble" (2007)
Children never wanted Marilyn Minter. "Art is a self-obsessed, compulsive affair where I want nothing to stop me," she says. "Being happily married is work enough and gives me the necessary balance." The artist not only wants to enjoy her success, but to expand it. She plans a lot. "I live a ridiculously healthy life," says the vegetarian. She spends a lot of time with her husband and her dogs in their home in the Hudson Valley, just a few hours drive from New York City. In the countryside, she takes the time to paint herself and to develop ideas for her outrageous images of women. When these women inflate pink chewing gum bubbles, Marilyn Minter uses eroticism only as a stepping-stone. It's about the economic bubble that has burst. To the dominance of the men who wants to make them burst. And dreams that often break up. Or only come true with delay.
