John Baeder’s Stardust Motel (1977), is a crisp, sunlit portrait of American roadside culture at its most iconic. Known for his photorealist paintings of diners, gas stations, and motels, Baeder treats the Stardust not as nostalgia-soaked ruin, but as a proud, functioning emblem of mid-century optimism. The signage is clean, declarative, and bold, the sky impossibly blue —everything rendered with the precision of a memory you’re not quite sure you actually lived. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: John Baeder, Stardust Motel→
Audrey Flack (1931 – 2024) was the most prominent woman artist to gain recognition as a photorealist in the 1960s and 1970s. She approached the genre of still life, which for centuries had been considered unprestigious by European and North American standards, with irreverent pleasure. Leonardo’s Lady (1974) presents tokens of traditional femininity (a jeweled bubble, embroidered ribbon, pink rose, and pressed powder compact), frivolity (effervescent champagne and shiny objects), and sexuality (a ripe, dripping pear and a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci‘s portrait of Francis I’s reputed mistress). Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Audrey Flack Leonardo’s Lady→
Sculptor Duane Hanson (1925 – 1996) often identified the figures in his artworks by their occupation or social roles, rather than their names. His photorealistic sculptural portraits — cast from life, painted and dressed in clothes corresponding to their roles — are thus transformed into ethnographic types. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Duane Hanson, Housewife→
Marilyn Minter’s sensual paintings, photographs, and videos vividly explore complex and contradictory emotions around beauty and the feminine body in American culture. She trains a critical eye on the power of desire, questioning the fashion industry’s commercialization of sex and the body. Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty, now on view at the Brooklyn Museum, is the first retrospective of her work.
With their Photorealism, Robert Bechtle’s works capture the essence of modern, postwar American culture. The manicured lawns bathed in sunlight, the well-kept houses, the kids, the cars . . . all of suburbia’s manifestations are explored and exploited in his works. He elevates the mundane and commonplace to something more, an anonymous yet intimate view of ourselves. It is important to remember that his works are not photographs. They are masterfully painted pieces that are touched by the artist’s ideas, vision, hand, and point of view. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Robert Bechtle, ’61 Pontiac→
