Marilyn Minter: CORAL RIDGE TOWERS

Casually reclining on the pillows in the bed, wearing only a night-gown and elegantly holding a cigarette, we find Honora Elizabeth Laskey Minter. Mother to Marilyn Minter.In closed, self-imposed surroundings she spends her days in a vain attempt to preserve her beauty. She paints her eyebrows. She smokes in bed, but above all else, she does nothing in particular. It is as if time has stopped. In rooms saturated with memories, ‘Mom’, as she’s called, spends her days in an air of declining film star glamour. The loneliness is perhaps accompanied by something tranquillizing, like valium.Marilyn Minter’s photographs have been compared by many to the works of prominent figures in photography, such as Diane Arbus, Larry Clark and Garry Winogrand.

We are showing 8 pictures from the ‘Coral Ridge Towers’ series. All were taken in 1969. Marilyn Minter was then a young art student in Florida. But it wasn’t until 1995 that she processed the pictures. And by then ‘Mom’ had been dead for fifteen years.Today, Marilyn Minter paints as well as works with technology and language.Her paintings are based around the themes of make-up, the body and the representation of women. We are showing one of her paintings in our lounge.

You are warmly invited to the opening, 21 March.
Marilyn Minter will be in Stockholm, 20 – 24 March.

“Another encounter between the present and the past takes place in Marilyn Minter’s image suite ‘Coral Ridge Towers’ on display at Galleri Index in Stockholm. The pictures of Marilyn Minter’s mother Honora Elizabeth Laskey Minter were taken by Marilyn Minter in 1969 but were not shown until 1995. In the pictures one encounters a woman who looks like she is living her life indoors. Constantly dressed in negligee, Marilyn Minter’s mother is engaged in smoking cigarettes, putting on make-up or just walking around in her own apartment in the ‘Coral Ridge Tower’. The beauty and pride of these photographs is that they provide knowledge about a time and a life that no longer exists. But above all, ‘Coral Ridge Tower’ shows our ideas and expectations of what Honora Elizabeth Laskey Minter’s life was like.”

Translated quote from SvD, 1998-04-04, Thomas Olsson. Read full text in Swedish.

“Without knowing anything more about the woman’s situation or about the relationships in the family, and without romanticizing the underlying difficulties: it is this image of the woman, who with dignified elegance and valium has chosen to retreat, that stays with me. The woman who has stopped time and remain with her memories and with her own reflection. The photo series (which is actually Minter’s only photographic work, she usually works with painting) has been compared to photographers such as Larry Clark and Diane Arbus, especially the latter’s photographs of everyday America. One could also compare her with a younger artist like Richard Billingham, whose photographs of his parents in a working class home in 90’s England form a peculiar and personal social report. Both works can be seen as documentaries following a tradition of documentary photography. Images that, in order to be able to say something about reality, rely just as much on fiction and a personal narrative as on the straightforward photographing of the world.”

Translated quote from DN, 1998-04-17, Milou Allerholm. Read full text in Swedish.