“Marilyn Minter” Installation view. Photo by OnArt Studio. ©Lehmann Maupin SeoulLehmann Maupin presents “Marilyn Minter”, an exhibition of new paintings by renowned multidisciplinary artist Marilyn Minter, marking her first solo exhibition in Seoul, through April 27. Concurrent to the exhibition, Lehmann Maupin will present a focused selection of Minter’s work at Art Basel Hong Kong, open March 26—30, 2024. The works on view depict vignettes of women’s lips and mouths, at once alluring and enigmatic.
Known for her decades-long career that encompasses photography, painting, video, and installation, Minter creates imagery that engages both hyperrealist and abstract technique. Her work has often centered around corporeal qualities and practices typically omitted from the mass-media depictions of women that dominate contemporary consumer culture, such as body hair, stretch marks, dirty feet, or acts of grooming. Rather than conceal such realities, the artist seeks to reframe these aspects of womanhood. Minter is also engaged with the art historical cannon, often using her signature lexicon to appropriate traditional tropes like the Odalisque or the Bather.
In “Marilyn Minter”, the artist’s compositions depict closely-cropped images of women’s faces, their mouths, lips, teeth, and décolletages adorned or open to varied degrees. In White Lotus (2023), a figure wears thick strands of pearls and beads, her open lips and jewelry obscured by steam and water droplets. Similarly, in Gilded Age (2023), dark red lips part to reveal a jewel-encrusted grill. The imagery is intimate yet strange, luring the viewer in with the suggestion of something more. Across the exhibition, Minter’s compositions continue her bold exploration of glamor, beauty, and representation through a feminist lens.
