Through their respective creative practices, artist Marilyn Minter and designer, performer, and curator Michèle Lamy have each challenged and redefined traditional notions of beauty.
In the 1980s, Minter sent shock waves through the art world with her overtly sexualized images of women, which sought to reclaim the visual language of sex from what she viewed as an abusive and exploitative history and also railed against the commodification of the female form. As Minter’s practice evolved, she began to create glossy, hyperrealistic paintings and stylized photographs of bodies—wrinkles, pimples, pubic hair, running mascara, and all—as a means of normalizing so-called flaws and critiquing the unrealistic standards of beauty propagated by advertising and fashion...