Mel Ramos

Eroticism, women, sex, women, fetishism, women, and obsession--of all the pop artists, it is perhaps Mel Ramos who has dealt most intensively and consistently with these enjoyable subjects. Always bright, always provocative, and always entertaining, his appropriations of some of the most vulgar yet familiar imagery to come out of the 1960s and 70s advertising world never fail to make the viewer blush with shame and almost simultaneously question such a moralistic reaction. If at first sight his paintings and graphic works are mistaken for typical, if raunchy, product placements, the absurdity of a naked girlie riding a giant cigar soon becomes apparent, as does the subtle surrealism of another naked pinup girl holding a giant spark plug in front of a corporate emblem. Sex and consumer culture never looked so good together, or so parodic.