BOILER~Barry Norman

Marilyn Minter
New Paintings and Photographs
September 6 through October 11, 2003

"Marilyn Minter: New Paintings & Photographs" is arguably one of the most significant art gallery exhibitions of the past 31 years. On view through October 18, 2003, at Fredericks Freiser Gallery, New York, this exhibition breaks new ground and summons up aspects of some of the most notable achievements of two-dimensional art of the early 1970's, mid-1980's, and late 1990's.

Consisting of two enamel-on-aluminum paintings and a half-dozen large, framed c-print photographs, all vividly depicting views of a young woman's face in ultra close-up. At first glance, it's nearly impossible to guess which are the paintings and which are the photographs. Distortion and clarity merge within each tableau. Each face compellingly draws in the viewer but delivers only a representation and not an actual visage. Minter's work is the genius love child of Franz Gertsch, Chuck Close, Audrey Flack, Cindy Sherman, Gerhard Richter, Thomas Ruff, Anna Gaskell, and Jack Smith. Not since the 1994 release of "Ill Communication," by The Beastie Boys, has there been a body of work that's been drawn from such a broad pool of exceptional innovation and genre sources and brought them together in such a singularly unified and extraordinarily comprehensive, original and expressive gesture.

Landscapes by a number of contemporary artists, such as, painter Rod Penner and photographer Elger Esser, are pleasurably confounding. Minter's works, however, are startling. Assembled within the intimate confines of Frederick Freiser Gallery, her paintings and photographs are richly rewarding to experience all at once.