Q&A: Artist and provocateur Marilyn Minter dishes on Madonna, makeup and ruining a pair of $15,000 shoes

You might not be familiar with artist Marilyn Minter, but her artwork is on display at the most public of galleries: Two Sunset Strip big screens and the lobbies of both local Standard hotels, plus a tote bag from high-end chain Intermix to mark National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Minter’s “Green Pink Caviar" video is screening on the Key Club billboard and another across from the Andaz Hotel as part of a public art project, sponsored by ForYourArt and Regen Projects gallery. Madonna had used the 8-minute vid in her “Sticky and Sweet” tour.

Minter also designed a tote that came out this month for New York-based Intermix, which has a boutique on Robertson Boulevard. A percentage of net proceeds from bag sales benefit Bright Pink, a nonprofit breast cancer awareness campaign targeting young women.

As you might have surmised by the bag collaboration, Minter, 61, flits around with fashion. She shoots regularly for Allure and has photographed ads for M.A.C. (a commission resulted in “Green Pink Caviar”) and Tom Ford Menswear. But Minter's oeuvre resembles more of a deranged take on fashion photography by portraying designer heels caked with grime or makeup so over-applied that the result is grotesque.

This week, Intermix, Regen Projects owner Shaun Caley-Regen, ForYourArt's Bettina Korek and designer Kimberly Ovitz hosted a premier screening of “Green Pink Caviar," which will play on both Sunset Boulevard billboards in West Hollywood through Dec. 31, feted by guests such as Band of Outsiders' Scott Sternberg and LD Tuttle's Tiffany Tuttle, Magda Berliner and actress Kristin Minter (Marilyn's niece). 

We spoke to Minter about her new artwork, the Intermix bag collaboration and working with Madonna and Tom Ford, after the jump.

Designer/director Tom Ford's first film to premiere at Venice Film Festival

Designer Tom Ford's directorial debut "A Single Man" will have its world premiere at the 66th annual Venice Film Festival, it was announced this week.

The movie, set in 1962 Los Angeles, is about a college professor who struggles to find meaning in his life after the death of his partner. It stars Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode and Nicholas Hoult.

Ford, whose eponymous menswear line has found favor with the Hollywood set both onscreen (dressing James Bond in "Quantum of Solace") and off  (Brad Pitt and Daniel Craig were among those wearing his wares to the 81st Academy Awards earlier this year), not only directed the screen adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's novel of the same name, he co-wrote the screenplay (with David Scearce) and it was produced  through Ford's Los Angeles-based production company Fade to Back.

He didn't, however, serve as the film's costume designer, instead tapping the Oscar-nominated Arianne Phillips (who received a nod for "Walk the Line") for that role.

The movie is scheduled to be screened Sept. 11, 2009, closing out the Italian festival's main competition.

-- Adam Tschorn

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Photo: In a  February 2008 file photo, Tom Ford (second from left) with (L-R) Rita Wilson, Maria Shriver and Richard Buckley attend the opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA. Credit: Stefano Paltera / For The Times.

 

Style Cannes do: Brad Pitt cuts a dashing figure in Tom Ford

When we saw Brad Pitt on "The Today Show" this morning chatting with a fawning Ann Curry (did she really have to slap/cup his cheek like that in the middle of the interview?), we couldn't tell if he was trying to be ironic or if he just happened to be Benjamin un-Buttoning through time and took a shine to Errol Flynn's threads. He was kitted out in a pale pink, two-piece suit, white shirt, gray cashmere scarf. A jaunty mouthbeard (see "moutee") and pair of sunglasses completed the look.

(For the record, Mrs. Rage thought the boy in the Brabble looked "stiff and uncomfortable." So noted.)

What we could tell -- instantaneously -- was that it was Tom Ford Menswear (the shirts always seem to lead with the collar). And sure enough, when Curry finished with Pitt -- there to promote his new Quentin Tarantino movie "Inglourious Basterds," she asked him who he was wearing.

"Mr. Ford dressed me," he told Curry -- as if such things happen every day (which they probably do in the Brad Pitt bubble, a.k.a. "the Brabble"). "He showed up this morning and personally dressed me."

Given how much Curry seemed to be salivating over her subject, we hope TF threw in a can of Scotchgard.

-- Adam Tschorn

Photo: Brad Pitt in Tom Ford at the 62 Cannes Film Festival. Credit: Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images.

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Tom Ford to open on Rodeo Drive -- right across from Gucci

From the day he opened his eponymous temple of man-luxe in Manhattan in April 2007, designer and fledgling director Tom Ford has planned on opening a store in the Los Angeles area. Fashion trade paper WWD reported yesterday that he'd chosen Rodeo Drive as a location, and although Ford's representative wouldn't confirm the report (citing Ford's unavailability until after the holidays), industry sources confirm that a lease for space in the 300 block of Rodeo Drive was indeed inked some time ago. At the opening of his Milan store, Ford said he'd hoped to open on the West Coast sometime in 2009.
We're told the space is located between the Luxe Hotel at 360 N. Rodeo Drive and Bally of Switzerland at 340 N. Rodeo Drive, in the space currently occupied by Bernini at 346 N. Rodeo Drive -- and right smack dab across the street from the Gucci flagship.
It's a fitting symbolic slap in the face with a kidskin driving glove given Ford's dramatic and high-profile departure as Gucci's creative director in 2004.

Well played, sir. Well played, indeed.

-- Adam Tschorn

Photo: A model in Tom Ford's flagship store in Manhattan, which opened in April 2007. Photo credit: Tom Ford Inc.