Joan Linder, grill, detail, from The Pink
Today’s Newsday has an article on the artist Joan Linder by Ariella Budick and it’s one of the best things I’ve read about her work. There is a short video too. Here is an excerpt:
Turning the tables on generations of male artists who offered up the anatomies of women as fruits for delectation, Linder painted a series of “Men” who don’t seem aware that they’re hardly wearing any clothes. Corporate executives literally throw their weight around at the office, opening a file drawer or searching for a contact lens while bulbous bellies overhang their briefs and wobble over their stick-like legs.
“Nobody wants to look at this work,” Linder admits. “People don’t want to see naked men.”
The drawings were a response to Linder’s contemporaries Lisa Yuskavage and John Currin, who merge the classic nude with the Playboy kind. “I thought, ‘Screw that. I’m going to do these pictures of fat men and what power really looks like.’”
We first met Joan in 2001 after buying a photo from her “Man About Town” series at the inaugural show of Plus Ultra Gallery, titled “Skank.” We also have a small drawing of an electrical outlet from more recent times.
The image above is a detail from her recent show at Mixed Greens, via her website.
