John Currin Boulder, USA, b. 1962

In his often shocking narratives, Currin explores how notions of the body, desire, and social norms shift under the influence of art, culture, and mass media. He fuses the pictorial language of the Northern Renaissance with glossy imagery borrowed from fashion and erotic magazines, transforming everyday motifs into works that resonate with the legacy of the Old Masters. This juxtaposition allows him to critically examine the phenomenon of society’s “exclusive standards” of beauty and to underscore their inherent instability and changeability.

Through his exceptional command of graphic and painterly techniques, as well as his penchant for the outrageous, the comedic, and the sensual, Currin’s subjects challenge both social and sexual taboos while simultaneously subverting the linear progression of artistic genres throughout history. His portrayals serve as satirical commentaries on society’s ceaseless pursuit of the elusive “ideal,” perpetuated through art history, media, advertising, and glossy magazine culture.

Alongside Cecily Brown, Jenny Saville, and John Sonsini, Currin has revived interest in portraiture, investing the genre with new meaning. In his works, allure is inseparable from the grotesque: carefully modeled forms are distorted, proportions collapse, and the harmony of lines turns into a parody of the ideal. What at first appears to be a refined classical portrait gradually reveals itself as an ironic satire on the very notion of perfection.