LGDR is thrilled to present an exhibition of recent work by Marilyn Minter, opening April 12, 2023, at its 3 East 89th Street location. Spanning three floors and six gallery spaces, this ambitious show is the artist's first solo exhibition in New York since her celebrated retrospective Pretty/Dirty at the Brooklyn Museum in 2016–2017. It introduces several new bodies of work, including portraiture, and highlights Minter's daring fifty-year exploration of beauty, representation, autonomy, and desire through a feminist, sex-positive perspective. A jaw-dropping display of jewel-toned paintings will co-mingle with sculpture, video, photographs, and prints. Minter approaches some of her now familiar themes with a critical, fresh eye and fearlessly tackles the art-historical canon by reinterpreting traditional genres such as bathers, odalisques, and portraiture.

In a first for Minter's painting practice, the exhibition debuts portraiture. For centuries, portraits have been the mainstay of the elite. Most portraits that grace the walls of museums, boardrooms, and private homes perpetuate a distorted view of history as remarkable for its absences as for its role in shaping mainstream political and civic discourse. Minter charges into this history, selecting subjects who have made impactful shifts in the cultural landscape. Previously, Minter has worked with models whose physical attributes—from freckles to body hair—celebrate unique forms of beauty and reassess what is often overlooked or erased from contemporary beauty and glamour imagery. In this first group of portraits, Minter hand-picked her subjects to include artists, social commentators, activists, and performers she admires, each of whom have contributed to our cultural conversations around feminism, race, and gender politics. These celebrated icons include Roxane Gay, Monica Lewinsky, Mickalene Thomas, Gloria Steinem, Glenn Ligon, and Lady Gaga.

Press release courtesy Lévy Gorvy Dayan.