Max Maslansky

Art Brokerage: Max Maslansky American Artist: b. 1976. Max Maslansky’s paintings are often of lurid scenes filled with people tangled together, culled from their exhibitionist poses as he renders them in intimate, dreamy colors. Rendered in his signature stain technique, much of Maslansky’s work takes source images from Red Light Lacuna (2011- ), his found archive of compromising selfies and cringe-worthy esoterica, which he shares through social networking websites. nBrowsing through Red Light Lacuna is pure schadenfreude, but given that it comprises mostly male subjects, the album offers a sly commentary on the operative strategies of the male gaze. Maslansky’s most recent paintings are an extension of this underlying premise. For these works, he reproduces vintage 1970s and 1980s porn production stills. For each painting, Maslansky swaps unprimed canvas for old bed sheets, which give the image an almost soft-focused, sensitive quality. Countering this sensitivity with clownish, gesso-laden body parts, Maslansky disassembles the constructed pornographic fantasies and turns the act of peeping into a slow, unfixed experience.