"Cuntrol" Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Jan 21 2020

Location: 

The United States

It’s almost no surprise that the Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade happened this past week.

Since its enaction in 1973, there have been numerous occasions where politicians and people alike have tried hacking away at its success in reaffirming a women’s right to choose.

As many Americans awoke to the notifications of the overruling on their phones (like I did) before even having their morning coffee — it was a dishevelling betrayal to see what had unfolded before us while we were in our slumber.

As if we did not just experience a crushing blow to our society, we then had to try to continue with our day as usual.

A political attack on my body and millions of other bodies like mine had come to its rotten fruition.

Enter: Marilyn Minter’s world of artistry, where most of her work centers around the desire and commodification of women and their body parts.

Cuntrol, which debuted at Abortion is Normal, an exhibit in 2020, held at Eva Presenhuber Galerie in New York, is a prime example of this idea.

In a super-realist manner, Minter pinpoints with Cuntrol the dualism women have to deal with in society.

Be this pretty, sexual being on display for pleasure and entertainment, but don’t expect much care or thought to be given by people beyond those flippant measures to which sexuality equates to.

It’s sensationalizing the voyeuristic appeals of a woman but leaving out the realities of actually being a woman.

While we’re in a country (cough, cough like America) that relishes in celebrity-dome, those who bear the most skin and act the raunchiest get awarded, where we praise the provocative — and concurrently punish the women who proclaim themselves in the world beyond the sexual.

All the while, others with power continuously overstep their fascination with our bodies by determining what they think is not suitable for us.

An avid pro-choice activist, Marilyn Minter exemplifies this desire to take the narrative back through these glossy steam-filled images.

The smoke and mirror shows are up. Half of the country wants to have the cake and eat it too. It’s just not possible.

In Cuntrol, Minter gives a 3-part glimpse of an attractive woman, sensually posed behind a glass of condensation.

The viewer can also quickly gather a sense of entrapment. This artwork's dichotomy of what it is to be a woman is stark.

In Marilyn Minter’s art, being a woman seems to be a contradictory act. We are the constant beautiful, delicate flowers of the lands that get plucked for the enjoyment of others.

Our desires to be seen as human beings first — and sexual beings last go ignored.

How many discussions are needed to convince others that what a woman chooses to do with her reproductive organs is no one else’s business?

When will we have the chance to solve the countless other issues that plague womanhood, which don’t necessarily pertain to our bodies?

The never-ending obsession with the female internal and external body parts has become weird, exhausting, and vapid.

The woman depicted in Cuntrol, virtually unidentifiable through the art, can be nearly any woman from the states.

With her done-up lipstick and strawberry blonde hair in the backdrop, the word “CUNTROL” (a word and letter play referencing the vulgar word “cunt”) is fingered across the foggy front in an almost horrific manner.

If we don’t have control of our own cunts, who does? Who has the “cuntrol” when women, whether Black or White, seem to be under the boot of a government?

Though this art doesn’t specify the plight of Black and Brown women, who subsequently will be affected more than any other race of women with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it can function to highlight the fact that even the White women of America are under attack with this overturning — and in its own wickedness, while in America, peoples ears tend to perk up a little bit more while seeing White bodies under attack.

Marilyn Minter uses Cuntrol to prod at who really has a say for women and our reproductive rights. While less than 30% of American citizens wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, the rest are left feeling angry and confused.

How could this possibly have happened here, in the United States of America, the land of the free? It seems to be a tangled bureaucracy mess that has been nearly impossible to penetrate and dismantle for decades.

In a digital interview produced by Arsenal Contemporary in 2020, Minter speaks about her Abortion is Normal exhibit and her frustration with continuing a battle she’s well too accustomed with…

“What will a 16-year-old kid do in Texas when she has to travel out of state to get an abortion? What’s the nearest state? I fought for this in ‘73 when I was a kid, I didn’t think this day would come again…I think that if you’re not angry and upset, you’re not paying attention right now.” Minter, Marilyn. “Interview: Marilyn Minter and Jasmine Wahi.” Interview by Anna Kovler. Arsenal Contemporary, Jan 2020, https://www.arsenalcontemporary.com/press/2020/01/interview-marilyn-mint....

What Minter did with Cuntrol solidifies that in America, even if you’re a woman who sides with anti-abortion rulings, you are ultimately just like the rest of us: A nation of women perpetually trapped behind this one-way, murky glass, where men (usually White, cis, and with far-right wing ideologies) make these political and societal decisions that will affect us for years to come.

Posted by christinesalazar on

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