Plush

Marilyn Minter has long been creating hyperrealistic paintings of the female body, from lipsticked lips to high-heeled feet, in tight, cropped compositions full of decadent color and provocative sexual implications. Now, her focus is turned toward a part of the female body that remains somewhat taboo for the 21st-century: female pubic hair. The New York artist has teamed up with Fulton Ryder, the book shop and publishing company helmed by artist Richard Prince. Ms. Minter's book, titled Plush, is an up-close examination of the au naturel, unshaved crotch-think an updated take on Courbet's L'Origine du monde, and with a distinctly female gaze-through a series of new photographs and paintings. The book is published in a limited run of 500 copies.