Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty records and analyses a Marilyn Minter retrospective, co-directed by Bill Arning ‘7?, who writes a director’s foreword and the introductory essay, “Marilyn Minter: From Unshiny to Shiny.” Bill, who directs the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, has collaborated with other museum directors and curators to put together this comprehensive show of an artist whose first installation he mounted in the ‘80’s at White Columns Gallery downtown. Bill traces the major shifts in her art while also conveying the history of the gallery scene in New York. He describes her evolution (also recorded in the book’s lavish photos) from her early works in the 70’s focusing on the very mundane (vinyl tile floors) through a period of “Food Porn,” (1989-1990) which indeed are erotic, to actual porn (90’s). Finally, Minter produces shiny Rococo images of mouths and other body parts engulfed in bubbles and jewels. Bill’s essay lays out a remarkable argument for the subversive relationship between these images and our culture. I believe that Bill Arning was in my class for more years than any other student. After he graduated, I kept running into him – once in Paris and once in the Oyster Bar at Grand Central. It’s a joy to encounter him again.
