Ratio 3 is pleased to announce Channel 3, the third and final phase of an extended exhibition surveying three video art practices. Featuring three videos by New York-based artist Marilyn Minter, Channel 3 is an overview of the artist’s video art production since 2011. Filmed in controlled studio environments and accompanied by hypnotic soundtracks, Minter’s videos create seductive yet ominous sequences that recall her iconic paintings and photographs.
I’m Not Much But I’m All I Think About (2011), depicts an overhead view of a boiling silver liquid. Angular metallic shapes resembling an ‘M’ and an ‘E’ descend from above, disrupting and sinking through the liquid surface. As the video progresses, more dramatic iterations of the letters appear in silver, gold, and in the form of M&M candies, each plunging through the rolling liquid. The letters can be read as a word or as the artist’s initials, offering a humorous and self-consciously narcissistic meditation on the artist's identity and public persona.
Throughout her prolific career, Minter has developed a provocative visual language that reflects themes of glamour, beauty, and power. Minter's distinctive imagery frequently subverts tropes from advertising and fashion as in Smash (2014), which depicts a woman's feet wearing jewel encrusted stilettos and kicking through a glass barrier between the model and the viewer.
Channel 3 also features Minter’s most recent video work, My Cuntry, ‘Tis of Thee (2018), which is simultaneously on view at Regen Projects in Los Angeles. The video features women writing phrases modified to include the word 'CUNT' onto steamed glass. As each letter is written, the women’s faces and figures are gradually made visible through the glass pane, which comes to serve as a canvas for their irreverent and often confrontational slogans. By deliberately using such a charged word throughout the video, the women occupy an empowered stance that reflects Minter’s political activism.
Channel is a sequence of video surveys, and an overview of three distinct approaches to video art production. The artists whose works comprise Channel build narratives with documentary footage, construct new images through animation, and capture sequences in controlled studio environments. Channel is a series, a survey, and an immersive experience.

Opening reception: Friday, June 1, 6 – 8pm

mpefm USA art press release