If we say "bad-boy artist," a number of names come to mind, mostly guys who partied to excess, made spectacles of themselves—Larry Rivers—and some who died young: Jackson Pollock, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dash Snow.
But say "bad-girl artist" and who comes to mind? Usually, Lisa Yuskavage. Her biggest backers—the gallery that exhibits her work (David Zwirner), the museum giving her a career-spanning show in September (Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University) and the publishers of a concurrent survey and monograph (Skira Rizzoli)—describe her work with words that most would consider critical: controversial, unsettling, cartoony, vulgar, confrontational, grotesque. Her oeuvre includes pneumatic babes lounging around half-clothed, holding flowers, spreading their legs, touching themselves and sometimes each other.