Marilyn Minter (b. 1948, Shreveport, Louisiana) has relentlessly interrogated the constructs of beauty, power, and desire, creating a visual language that is both seductive and subversive. Through painting, photography, and video, Minter dissolves the boundaries between glamour and grit, embracing imperfection as an essential component of attraction.
Emerging in the late 1960s and ’70s, her photographic series Coral Ridge Towers set a precedent for her direct approach, capturing her mother in moments of extreme vulnerability. Her Porn Grid series, created in the late 1980s, sparked intense critical debate around the representation of female sexuality, challenging both the art world and feminist discourse. Over the decades, she has consistently expanded this exploration—from the lush materiality of Food Porn, which anticipated today’s obsession with digital aestheticization, to the Bathers series, where women reclaim their own agency, defying the historically male gaze.
Minter’s practice is distinguished by a technical mastery that reflects her conceptual depth. Her photorealistic enamel paintings, built through meticulous layers of color and gloss, present the body in extreme close-up—sweat, makeup, and moisture transformed into liquid abstraction. Her video works, from Green Pink Caviar to Smash, extend this fascination with excess and transformation, immersing the viewer in a world that is as intoxicating as it is disorienting.
A defining figure in contemporary art, Minter has exhibited globally, with major retrospectives such as Pretty/Dirty at the Brooklyn Museum, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and Orange County Museum of Art. Her work is held in the permanent collections of MoMA, Tate Modern, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Guggenheim, among others. She remains an uncompromising force in the cultural landscape, pushing the boundaries of image-making and the politics of perception.
An Interview with Marilyn Minter
By Carol Real
Marilyn, you’ve often talked about being drawn to images that both attract and repel. But do you actually see them that way, or is that just how others interpret your work?
I actually don’t think of them in that way. Everyone else says they attract and repel. I think of them as images that exist, but you’ve never seen before. Those pimples exist; they’ve just never been depicted. You know that there’s fine hair on top of your lips—I’ll paint every one of those hairs. They don’t repel me. They’re just something that exists that you’ve never seen before. And the people who talk about my work talk about those images being repelling, but I don’t think they’re repelling.
Your early photographic series, “Coral Ridge Towers,” captured your mother in moments of raw vulnerability. What drew you to such an intimate subject at that stage in your career, and did you ever hesitate before exposing that level of personal truth?
I never saw them as anything but my mother. My brothers and I saw those pictures and I said, “What are people talking about? Why is this a big deal?” We’re so used to our drug-addict mother that we didn’t think anyone sees it the way you see it. That was just taking pictures of my mother one weekend when I was home on vacation. I never for a minute thought I was exposing anything. I took them back to class and people went, “Oh, that’s your mother,” and that was the first time I realized that other people’s mothers weren’t like this. I know that that sounds disingenuous, but it’s the god-awful truth. I was so used to her. My friends were used to her, and we didn’t think, “Oh, this is out of the ordinary.” And my mother could care less. She knew she was a beautiful woman, and she was high on drugs all the time, so I never thought anything of it. But when all the other students were shocked, I had waves of shame coming over me, and I didn’t show them again until 1995. That tells you something, right? I took them in 1969.
Diane Arbus once said, “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.” Given your early photographic work, do you see your images as revealing or obscuring reality?
Revealing. Revealing.
The pathology of glamour—shiny, seductive, yet flawed and visceral—runs through your work. What do you think is the biggest lie the beauty industry has told us, and how does your work attempt to dismantle that illusion?
I think it’s a complex issue. Glamour and beauty are considered shallow and contemptible, but at the same time, they give everybody so much pleasure. It’s considered a lesser industry in the world, but it’s actually a billion-zillion-dollar industry, and it’s a big engine of everybody’s culture. At the same time, it creates body dysmorphia and self-hatred. So I think you have to take what you can from the beauty industry. Why not have pleasure in making yourself look good? Why is that self-contemptible? Why aren’t more artists examining this? Because it’s such a giant industry of our world, yet it’s considered so shallow. So why should we have to have self-hatred about something that makes us happy? My work is all about trying to get rid of that shame.
The “Bathers” series reclaims a historically male-dominated gaze, placing women behind glass, controlling their visibility. What power dynamics were you most conscious of while developing this body of work?
Because art history is filled with women bathing, I wanted to make a 21st-century bather, one behind a shower or spa glass That’s how I could create a conscious being instead of just another naked woman bathing. I wanted to see what it looked like to portray women grooming because women don’t paint other women grooming. Why is that?
I wanted to see what it looks like.
Pretty/Dirty seems to challenge our collective discomfort with imperfection, especially in representations of the female body. Have you ever encountered resistance from within the art world toward your depiction of raw sensuality?
I actually had one of my models say, “I really like all of your work, but I don’t want any of this older sexuality. I don’t want to see any pictures of it. That makes me sick.”
But that’s another generation—a generation above mine, age-wise. This is something I didn’t know until I was commissioned by The New York Times to work on the elder sex issue for The New York Times Magazine. Statistics were showing that because people in their eighties and nineties are so much healthier than they were 10 or 20 years ago, they’re still having sex—and they’re having really enjoyable sex. I didn’t know that. Maggie Jones interviewed people from all over and did a whole study, and The Times wanted to make pictures of what that looks like.
So we actually asked for couples who were having a healthy sex life in their eighties and nineties, and only two couples agreed—everyone else turned us down. Because of this, most of the people in them were actors. I couldn’t use models because they were too altered by plastic surgery. I wanted to use real people—real aging bodies—because I think what happens is that the performative aspect disappears, and it becomes all about pleasure. I’m learning myself, and it’s important to show younger generations that this is your future.
The beauty of it is that 20 years ago, there wasn’t even Viagra. That’s a huge difference, and it’s still a big surprise to everyone. And when I went to Walmart and saw a male vibrator for sale, I thought—when you see vibrators in display cases at Walmart, that’s your future. Get used to it.
There’s so much contempt for aging sex. Even this very famous model I shot for a portrait told me she doesn’t want to sleep with an old guy—she’d rather be with a 20-year-old or no one at all. She doesn’t want to look at aging skin. But I don’t have that repellent gene, I guess. It doesn’t repel me.
I’ve lived with someone for 35 years. He doesn’t repel me—I find him very hot. What’s the secret? Finding someone who sees you, and compromise. I love that constant compromise.
Navigating the worlds of high fashion, pornography, and contemporary fine art, do you think society has become more liberated in its view of female sexuality, or are we merely consuming it in different ways?
I think it’s really interesting that, for the first time, women have agency over how they’re going to be perceived sexually—and, terribly, it’s intimidating to boys and men. It shocks me that women owning sexual agency is frightening. Especially if you’re young—when you’re postmenopausal, you can get away with it. I can shoot anything. I just think of that famous Robert Mapplethorpe photograph of Louise Bourgeois holding that giant dildo, and everyone thinks she’s adorable. But if it were a young girl holding that giant dildo, it would be very threatening and frightening. It’s new. I’m just learning the language of why it’s so scary. I wish people would do studies on why women always have to be passive according to their age group. I don’t know enough about it. I’m a painter, not a sociologist or an anthropologist. I’m just looking at the trends of what’s going on because I’m someone interested in culture, and I’m a voracious consumer of it. That’s my job. My job is just to take a picture of it—or make a picture of it.
The feminist response to your “Porn Grid” series was initially critical. Looking back, do you think those reactions were misunderstandings of your intent, or do you see them as part of a necessary cultural conversation on female representation?
It was both. I was a pro-sex feminist before it was in the culture, and I thought everyone thought like I did. I was kind of shocked. I was in a bubble. My friends were pro-sex feminists. I think my reaction to it was that second-generation feminists weren’t prepared, and they were frightened. They were frightened because sexuality had damaged so many people. I was taking abusive pictures—the context was abusive—and repurposing them for my own pleasure and amusement, and they weren’t ready. But just a few years later, the Internet was on my side, and my side won. The ideas of Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon look pathetic now—sad, even—but it all comes from fear. So I understand where it came from. But I’m capable of tolerating complexity, and I wish other people were. Nothing’s black and white.
The digital age has hyper-aestheticized consumption—food, beauty, sex, even protest. Your “Food Porn” series predated much of this phenomenon. Why do you think we’re so attracted to these highly stylized images?
I’ve been told I was ahead of the times. I know it’s true.
I think human nature is obsessed with sexuality—absolutely. It’s the core of who we are. We try to civilize it, but there must be ways to create a civilized culture without shaming people. I think “Food Porn” was metaphorical for people. Sex and violence—that’s everywhere. That’s what makes people addicted. And that’s why the Internet is so addictive. Like I said, I’m not a sociologist, but we’re just now learning how damaging it can be. We’re only now developing the language for it. Maybe teens and young kids shouldn’t have access until their brains are more fully developed, but I don’t know.
Looking back, did you see signs that things would evolve in this direction?
I don’t know. I thought information was going to radicalize people into accepting differences and not be so scared but I was wrong. I thought that TV shined the picture on the abuses of segregation, and because of that and the Vietnam War, I thought, oh yeah, now we see exactly what’s going on–how these people in Selma, Alabama are being treated. That woke people up. I think the gift of the human race is empathy, and when you don’t have that, you’re doomed.
Your technical process is incredibly meticulous—painting with enamel on metal, layering images, and using fingertips for finishing touches. Is this commitment to process a form of “resistance” against the disposability of digital imagery?
I don’t know. I know that it’s the way I can get this great skin tone. I didn’t think about it when I developed this technique with enamel paint, layering it. I just loved the way it looked.
It’s a commitment because I want that depth that you can’t get in a photo. I don’t know, maybe we’re like craftspeople who build cabinets by hand, but I’m not sure. There’s something—there’s a depth in my painting that I just can’t get in a photo. I do both, but there is an essence to my paintings that photographs will never have. They’re layers and layers and layers of enamel. You can’t get that with an inkjet print.
Some of your most powerful works appear almost wet, fluid, and in motion. What role does ambiguity play in your work, and do you think people are afraid of images that don’t provide easy answers?
It seems to be true. There’s a blessing and a curse with all this new technology. And yeah, you’re going to have shallow, bad art made with AI, but someone’s going to turn AI into something genius. Someone will, for sure. It’ll be just like having a new camera or a new way of making art. It will be as revolutionary as the camera was at the turn of the century. But right now this new technology is soulless. I don’t see the love in the making.
Do you think AI-generated images can ever be considered true art?
I think it becomes art when it’s disturbing but not in a shock-value kind of way. If you tell some kind of truth that’s upsetting or makes you think about something, then that’s when it’s art. Personally, I don’t like movies that tell me what to think. I don’t like books that tell me what to think. If AI tells you what to think, then it’s fucked.
But I remember when I was a kid, we weren’t learning Latin and Greek, and the elders were complaining about it. They said we were just sitting in front of the boob tube, watching TV instead of learning Latin and Greek.
I’m not going to be one of those people who are nostalgic “for the good old days.” This new technology will eventually end up being good, but there will be bad, too—just like TV. Some people—well, everyone—needs to check out sometimes. You need to do repetitive things, like watching a sitcom, where you know exactly what’s going to happen. Somewhere in the back of your head, you need to turn your brain off so it can heal and take in your day or something. I have no problem with trash TV. I love it myself. I have my shows, and I also read books.
What’s your favorite trash TV show?
Love is Blind. It’s shocking—just watching human nature. Love is Blind is especially shocking to my age group. Anyway, everyone has something. The Housewives? I don’t know—take your pick. Boys have sports.
You’ve witnessed enormous shifts in how art and visual culture address desire, beauty, and the female body. How do you think the conversation has changed since you started, and what has remained the same?
I’ve witnessed enormous shifts. When I moved to New York, every gallery had no women, or at most, one or two. Can you imagine? And no people of color. Not one.
I mean, great artists were totally ignored. I saw David Hammons in the nineties at Exit Art, and I remember thinking, What the fuck? How do I not know about this artist? I felt the same way when I saw Senga Nengudi at Dia: Beacon. These are great artists—why aren’t there books being written about them? Nowadays, there’s a new canon being formed, but because of Trump and the way people react, there’s this huge backlash. Art history always seems to stay the same: two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, one step back.
But what has changed is that women and people of color are no longer as marginalized as they were. And that’s real progress. Women leaders are better. They should only elect women leaders. Boys are so immature. That’s what I’ve learned from Love Is Blind—this macho shit. What does that do for you? I want even-handed people in charge. My husband said the other day that he was really sorry the woman didn’t win in Canada. He said “They’re just better leaders. They don’t have to prove anything. They don’t have to arm wrestle.”
You once said, “I’m really glad to see mediocre women artists getting attention because the boys have been doing it for years.” Are we finally at a point where mediocrity is equally distributed? (The Creative Independent)
The minute women and Black artists are mediocre in all the shows, I’ll be very happy. That will make my day. We need that. We need as much mediocrity as white men have been handing to the culture forever—until now. Maybe we’ll only be equal when we are all equally mediocre.
What do you think allows certain artists to have a lasting impact while others are overlooked?
Well, if you stick around, you’ve got something to say. If you just don’t get erased—though you might be dead when people finally discover what you have to say—you’re having a dialogue with your viewer. Sadly, for women, that’s often been the case, and for Black artists too. Romare Bearden, people like that, just erased. I hardly saw their work.
There’s been a big shift, though, and it’s a healthy one. It’s making everybody much more conscious of what it’s all about—tolerance of complexity. We have to be able to tolerate complexity. That is the biggest problem with the arts. It’s so hard to do. Pretty much, people want to put everybody into categories and keep them there. But nobody fits. Nobody. I know that.
With For Freedoms, you made a striking political statement in a deeply divided time. Do you believe artists have a moral responsibility to engage in activism, or should art remain a space of personal expression?
Well, it is naturally a place of personal expression. I don’t think all artists should be political. I think most artists don’t give a shit. Why should they? I mean, they have their eye on another ball. Some artists are only political, and they’re brilliant at it—everything they do is. But in a way, everything everyone does is political.
I’m just an artist who happens to be an activist, but I don’t necessarily think of my art as activist art. It isn’t, really. I think maybe it is, but it’s more cultural than activism. But I don’t know—I have no choice. I make what I have to make. I think the new paintings I’m going to do are more activist. I’ve never been so upset, but that’s who I am. I usually have threads of activism, but I’m not Barbara Kruger. I’m not Kara Walker. They don’t make anything that’s not activist.
The Green Pink Caviar video was provocative, playful, and even ended up as a backdrop for Madonna. Were you ever surprised by how your work has been appropriated or interpreted by pop culture?
No. I don’t think I necessarily directly contribute to pop culture. Maybe in the fashion world, by making things dirty and putting freckles out into the world—that’s my contribution. In fashion, instead of plucking out each grain of dirt on models with tweezers, they started letting things fall apart a little more. But then, reality disappeared again. We’re in a period of retouching everything, making everything flawless. I think it’s pretty unhealthy. There’s got to be a sweet spot where we can accept flaws in each other.
Where do we find our paradise?
I think it’s really individual. There’s no panacea.
Throughout your career, you’ve challenged, provoked, and resisted conformity. Looking back, what do you hope people will say Marilyn Minter made them see differently?
My goal is to eliminate shame. It just doesn’t do anybody any good. Guilt is fine. Guilt is healthy. Guilt means you change something. Shame, on the other hand, makes you feel like your very existence is a blot on the universe. I think shame deforms and distorts—it’s not healthy. Whereas guilt is very good. A conscience is good.
Interview conducted in New York City on March 14, 2025.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
All images courtesy of Marilyn Minter Studio, Salon 94 (New York), and Regen Projects (Los Angeles).
Editor: Kristen Evangelista