"Before John Currin had children in his early forties and started transmogrifying hard-core pornography, he painted women almost exclusively. And they made him famous. And rich. With their tortuous bodies and haunting faces, they simultaneously repulsed and attracted; looking at them, you weren't sure if you were objectifying them or they were objectifying you... Since Currin's retrospective at the Whitney Museum in 2003, he's undergone a coronation of sorts; in certain tastemaking circles, he's now considered king. And all because he found a way to capitalize on the most mundane, most elusive of all male obsessions: women." --"Porn Star," by Howie Kahn, GQ, April 2007
