The Crowd: OCMA fetes photographer Marilyn Minter
Growing up in Florida in the 1960s, the seeds of an artistic path began to shape the life of a young girl. The teenager, Marilyn Minter, began experimentation with photography.
Like many young people coming of age during the ‘60s cultural revolution, Minter was admittedly taken by sexually charged images, elements of the female form, beauty, fashion and the influence of pop/rock counter-culture icons.
Of course, images of the emerging drug culture were also ever present. Her own mother fought drug addiction and became the basis of one of Minter’s earliest photographic explorations. At the time, such an artistic pursuit was considered practically obscene. Today, it is looked upon as the early foundation of an artist’s life work.
Nearly 50 years on, Minter, born in 1948, is among a revered class of contemporary American artists. The sexual images she was attracted to as subjects back then were often labeled as pornography, yet they have since evolved and culminated in her recent international exhibition titled “Pretty/Dirty.”
The show, which is currently on exhibit at Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, incorporates some of Minter’s early work like “Little Girls #1” and “Big Girls.” The traveling exhibition opened in April 2015 at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Then it moved to Denver before coming to Orange County. It will end its run at the Brooklyn Museum.
Recently, OCMA welcomed Minter at the 2016 Art of Dining celebration, held at the future site of the museum in Costa Mesa on land adjacent to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Presented by Louis Vuitton and hosted by OCMA CEO Todd Smith, the lively evening netted $535,000 for the museum while lauding the work and career of Minter.
Art of Dining, which has been a mainstay fundraiser for OCMA for decades, has traditionally been a very formal and rather erudite affair. This season, perhaps because of Minter herself, the party was youthful, energetic and free-spirited.
The guest list and donor roster remained full of the loyal museum stalwarts. Local citizens included Jennifer and Anton Segerstrom, Twyla and Charles Martin, Marsha and Daryl Anderson, Roberta and Howard Ahmanson, Sally and Randy Crockett and JoAnn and Anthony Fanticola. Also front and center for the dinner honoring Minter were OCMA board President Craig Wells, architect for the new museum building Thom Mayne, Nicole Ruva and Ron Michaels representing Louis Vuitton, Mike Lake representing sponsor BMW, museum trustee Steve Roush and very special guests Daniel Rangel and artist Catherine Opie.
Opie, a well-known Los Angeles-based artist in her own right, offered a glowing and heartfelt introduction to Minter. While the acclaimed transplanted New Yorker, with images of Minter’s massive works projected on the walls and ceiling of the dinner tent in which Art of Dining was staged, Minter took the microphone from Opie and said, “I thank you.” She then embraced Opie and left the stage to return to her table.
Surely the very definition of short and sweet. The crowd stood and cheered and the party went into full throttle.
It all began as the crowd arrived at the enormous tent erected on site. No expense was spared to entertain the 300 patrons greeted by a reception area outfitted by Room & Board as a lounge. Guests sipped signature cocktails with Nolet gins and Ketel One vodka while sampling hors d’ oeuvres such as spicy pork belly meatballs and scallop ceviche from Vaca.
OCMA devotees, including event organizers Teri Kennady, Deborah Lake, Susan Etchandy, Jennifer Van Berg and Tracy Schroeder, joined their husbands and friends for an amazing four-course dinner prepared and served by the Kitchen for Exploring Foods.
Dinner was truly exceptional, especially for an on-site, catered, 300-person sit-down. A foie gras terrine filled with exotic tastes — including fleur de sel poached plum — was followed by a second course of sea trout and bulgur tartare, then an entrée of bone in braised short ribs. For dessert came individual chocolate bombes, supposedly inspired by artist Minter’s obsession with the female form!
In between courses the obligatory auction raised needed funds, and the party concluded with dancing until the Cinderella hour with music by Ground Control.
Supporting the event and the museum were donors including John and Mary Carrington, Sandy Keith, John and Sherry Phelan, Rob and Marina Arnott, Dana and Rob Johnson, Michele and Roger Fricke, Inga Beder, Debra Gunn Downing and Charles Kanter, Bill Miller, Melissa and Scott Knode, and Judy and Jim Chang.
To explore the Minter exhibition at OCMA, be sure to visit the museum before July 10. The show includes some 40 paintings, photographs, video segments and more created by the artist between 1969 and 2015. Visit ocma.net or call (949) 759-1122 for more information.
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B.W. COOK is editor of the Bay Window, the official publication of the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach.
