Marilyn Minter

A Constant Rebel

- Carlo McCormick

Isolation, that most disquieting quiet, and perhaps the cruelest of all tortures devised by our penal systems is very unlike the contemplative silence and purposeful focus of solitude. As we all find ourselves navigating an ongoing pandemic lockdown as a path from the former to the latter, we come to negotiate communication as a surrogate of community, a way of talking it out so we are, at least for a moment, less terrifyingly alone. Deprivation creates its own unruly and unpredictable desires. I remember once, during a period of incarceration, wishing mightily for a Big Mac, even though I had not been to a fast food franchise in decades before or since. By such circumstances of unpredictability I cannot say for sure why it felt important—even necessary—for me to talk to Marilyn Minter, but I know when Juxtapoz approached me about writing a feature, it was she who first came to mind. I really wanted to see what she had to say at this moment in time, to see how she was doing, and what had changed, as much as to know what was fundamentally unchangeable in her art, life and engagement with the world.