Marilyn’s Smile is one of my favorites and the one that they chose to put on the cover of the local alternative weekly when they did a piece on her. It is such an intense piece that I couldn’t help but wonder what everybody thought about her when they saw it. She had such a wide range of styles and subject matter that to throw this at them without a little explanation almost seemed misleading. Whereas this girl might be playing jacks in another Gianaclis work, this one is in full response mode to the horror that lies before her, what looks like a smiling Marilyn Monroe, who is made up of a waving sheet and stuck by clear as clear nails to the inside of a an old wooden box. Before her is a dark, tattered walkway wrending cavelike up. Below a slothlike creature chewing its nails as though it too is feeling this fear. A letter sits unnoticed in the corner.
Katherine Gianaclis
Marilyn’s Smile
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