Introduction
Marilyn is an American artist who uses the photorealism movement to showcase her artwork. Marilyn Minter was born in 1948 in Shreveport, Los Angeles, United States of America. In 1972, he went on to receive her bachelor of arts from the University of Florida. He moved to New York in 1978, and during this period, he utilized her skills in painting and photography to produce scenes that usually feature nudity, fashion, and food. Since then, the majority of her artwork has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions. Most of her artworks are currently held in major museums such as Solomon Guggenheim in New York, Museum of Contemporary Arts in Los Angeles, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others (Minter 35). Minter’s brand of photorealist painting explores the contemporary idea of women’s beauty. In most of her artworks, Minter’s aesthetics of high-fashion artworks depict cropped artworks that are jewel-laden. The purpose of this paper is to describe the cultural significance of the photorealism movement, explore how Marilyn Minter’s artwork, Blue Poles (2007), was influenced by the art that came before and how the artwork influenced artists or movements coming afterward.
Cultural Significance of the Photorealism Movement
Photorealism, also referred to as superrealism, is an American art movement that started in the 1960s. The movement has a lot of cultural significance that inspires photorealists to take photos as inspiration and create highly illusionistic images that referred to nature and the reproduced images. There are numerous photorealist artists such as Marilyn Minter, Richard Estes, and Ralph Goings. They have immensely contributed to the growth of the photorealist movement and its cultural significance to the American people and people from across the globe. It is worthy of note that sculptors such as Duane Hanson and John De Andrea also cast their sculptors from live models, thus achieving the significance of photorealism, which was simulated reality.
The photorealism movement provided the photorealist with the techniques of reproducing their artworks in a manner that seemed to be so real. This was made possible since, through the contributions of the movement, artists acquired the requisite skills where they were able to project a photographed image into a canvas and apply an airbrush to reproduce the effect of a photograph printed on a glossy paper. The idea of painting was mainly involved with the photograph, and the painting was merely a technique used to finish the photograph up. The photorealism movement has made it possible for artists to use it to reproduce art in real life. This has contributed to numerous incredibly aesthetic outstanding pieces such as Minter’s Blue Poles (2007).
Contribution of Minter’s Blue Poles (2007) to the Photorealist Movement
Marilyn Minter’s Blue Poles (2007) is 60 inches (152.4 cm) in length and 72 inches (182.9cm) in height (see fig.1) below. In Blue Poles (2007), Minter looks at a critical issue that faces a woman, and they are otherwise perceived and presented by men, especially for female consumption. In the current contemporary world, the fashion industry has been dominated by male fashion owners, photographers, and designers (Minter 42). However, according to Minter’s artwork, she succeeds in making a blatant but naïve critique of fashion. Blue Poles (2007) provides a dual nature and some imperfections of women and herself. This is to find that true allure is associated with the sensuality of imperfections.
The photorealist movement’s idea is to reveal and portray things as they are and as real as possible. Marilyn Minter succeeds in exposing flaws in women in his artwork Blue Poles (2007), as she takes an exquisite face and reveals some imperfections in the form of a pimple, freckles, and errant eyebrows. These flaws make human beings attractive and loveable in real life, although, in the beauty industry, Minter indicates that such flaws need to be eradicated.
Minter’s artwork absorbs a glut of ideas and lessons from various artists who have made vital contributions to the photorealism movement. Some of these artists include Chuck Close and Robert Cottingham. Chuck Close made crucial contributions to the photorealism movement as well as positively impacted Minter’s work. Chuck Close is popularly known for his monumental portraits that utilize color, scale, and form. He is recognized for his application that uses individual color squares to form a realistic and unified image from a distance (Storr 36). This technique is common in his painting Agnes (1998). Similarly, Robert Cottingham made his contributions to the photorealism movement by depicting the American urban landscapes. Some of his famous artwork include Women-Girls (2000).
Influence by Art That Came Before and After
The photorealism movement was influenced by the minimalism movement that came before. The minimalist movement essentially described various forms of art by exposing the essential features or identity while leaving out the non-essential features, forms, or concepts. However, the photorealism movement aimed to improve minimalism ideas where all the components or features of artwork are depicted (Kozlowski 3). Photorealism seeks to depict an artwork as real as possible.
On the other hand, the photorealism movement has been significantly impacted by the Pop movement that came afterward. Like pop artists, photorealists are equally involved in the hierarchical breakdown of a subject matter by incorporating everyday scenes such as commercial life. For instance, in her artwork, Marilyn Minter is interested in incorporating commercial life in her artworks, such as jewels and other components that make up the fashion industry. This is an influence of the pop movement. Additionally, just like Pop artists, Minter draws her ideas from commercial and advertising imagery. In her artwork, Blue Poles (2007), she depicts the flaws that make human beings attractive and lovable. However, in this era of Photoshop, where features such as freckles are eliminated from entertainment and fashion magazines, Blue Poles (2007) can be perceived as an end to celebrating the attractiveness and unretouched human face (Ghorashi 9).
The uniqueness of Photorealism and Minter’s Blue Poles (2007)
The main feature that makes photorealism unique compared to previous and current movements such as minimalism and pop movement is its realness. Photorealism depicts an artwork in its real form with all features that make the object intact. For instance, in Minter’s Blue Poles, Minter reveals some of the flaws that are eliminated in minimalism or pop movement.
Further, Minter’s Blue Poles’ (2007) uniqueness is that it gives the viewers a quintessentially male perspective of erotic surveillance and power. This is what Laura Mulvey would have termed “the male gaze” (Mulvey 366). Minter’s relationship to historical experimental work and Surrealist photography, albeit shallow, ties with art-fair capitalism and corporate culture. This makes one wonder whether her empowered woman is straightforward to assimilate, particularly with the violent visual and erotic pleasure of patriarchal society and winner-takes-all capitalism.
Conclusion
Marilyn Minter has made a significant contribution to the photorealism movement that started in the 1960s. Photorealism, despite being influenced by Minimalism and Pop movements; is ideas that are premised on the need to depict artworks as accurately as they appear in reality. Over the years, Minter has made vital contributions to the photorealism movement through her numerous paintings. Minter’s artworks are usually cropped erotic photographs that are heavily laden with make-up and jewels. One such artwork is the Blue Poles (2007), which aimed to depict some of the flaws that make us attractive and loveable.
Blue Poles (2007)
Medium: Enamel on Metal.
Width and Height: 60 x 72 inches.
Work Cited
Ghorashi, Hannah. “I Want Women to Look Like They Can’t Get Thrown Away’: Marilyn Minter On Her Retrospective, ‘Pretty/Dirty.”ARTnews (2016). Web.
Kozlowski, Elizabeth. “Subversion or oppression? Visual representations of female sexuality in the work of Marilyn Minter.”
Minter, Marilyn, and Johanna Burton. Marilyn Minter. Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2010.
Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (the UK, 1975). University of California Press, 2014. Web.
Storr, Robert, Kirk Varnedoe, and Deborah Wye. Chuck Close. The Museum of Modern Art, 1998.