Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (/ˈmeɪpəlˌθɔːrp/MAY-pəl-thorp; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and femalenudes, self-portraits, and still-life images. His most controversial works documented and examined the gay maleBDSM subculture ofNew York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Mapplethorpe's 1989 exhibition,Robert Mapplethorpe:The Perfect Moment, sparked a debate in the United States concerning both use of public funds for "obscene" artwork and theConstitutional limits offree speech in theUnited States.
Mapplethorpe's studio at 24Bond Street in theNoHo neighborhood ofManhattan, which he later used as a darkroom.Mapplethorpe's romantic partner and lifelong friendPatti Smith
Mapplethorpe was born in the Floral Park neighborhood ofQueens, New York City, the son of Joan Dorothy (Maxey) and Harry Irving Mapplethorpe, an electrical engineer.[1] He was of English, Irish, and German descent, and grew up as aCatholic at Our Lady of the Snows Parish. Mapplethorpe attendedMartin Van Buren High School, where he graduated in 1963.[2]
He had three brothers and two sisters. One of his brothers, Edward, later worked for him as an assistant and became a photographer as well.[3] He attended thePratt Institute inBrooklyn, where he majored in Graphic Arts.[4] He dropped out in 1969 before finishing his degree.[5]
Mapplethorpe lived with his girlfriend, the artist and musicianPatti Smith, from 1967 to 1972,[6] and she supported him[7] by working in bookstores.[8] They created art together,[9] and maintained a close friendship throughout Mapplethorpe's life.[8][10][11] In the late 1960s or early 1970s, Mapplethorpe took his first photographs using aPolaroid camera. He designed and sold his own jewelry, which was worn byWarhol superstarJoe Dallesandro.[12][13] During this period Mapplethorpe also produced drawings, collages, and found object sculptures.
In 1972, Mapplethorpe met art curatorSam Wagstaff, who became his mentor, lover,[14] patron, and lifetime companion.[15] In the mid-1970s, Wagstaff acquired aHasselblad medium-format camera and Mapplethorpe began taking photographs of a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, including artists, composers, and socialites. During this time, he became friends withNew Orleans artistGeorge Dureau, whose work had such a profound impact on Mapplethorpe that he restaged many of Dureau's early photographs.[15]
From 1977 until 1980, Mapplethorpe was the lover of writer andDrummer editorJack Fritscher,[16] who introduced him to theMineshaft, a members-onlyBDSM gayleather bar and sex club in Manhattan.[17] Mapplethorpe took many pictures of the Mineshaft, and was at one point its official photographer (... "After dinner I go to the Mineshaft."[18][19][20])
By the 1980s, Mapplethorpe's subject matter focused on statuesque male and female nudes, delicate flower still lifes, and highly formal portraits of artists and celebrities. Mapplethorpe's first studio was at 24Bond Street in Manhattan. In the 1980s, Wagstaff bought a top-floor loft at 35West 23rd Street for Robert, where he resided, also using it as a photo-shoot studio.[21] He kept the Bond Street loft as his darkroom. The exceptional quality of Mapplethorpe's prints was achieved with the technical assistance of printerTom Baril from 1979 to 1989, despite a tense working relationship.[21] In 1988, Mapplethorpe selectedPatricia Morrisroe to write his biography, which was based on more than 300 interviews with celebrities, critics, lovers, and Mapplethorpe himself.[21]
On March 9, 1989, Mapplethorpe died at age 42 due to complications fromHIV/AIDS in aBoston hospital.[22] His body was cremated. His ashes are interred atSt. John's Cemetery, Queens in New York City, at his mother's gravesite, etched "Maxey".[23]
Nearly a year before his death, the ailing Mapplethorpe helped found the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc. His vision for the Foundation was that it would be "the appropriate vehicle to protect his work, to advance his creative vision, and to promote the causes he cared about".[24] Since his death, the Foundation has functioned as his official estate and helped promote his work throughout the world, and has raised and donated millions of dollars to fund medical research in the fight against AIDS and HIV infection.[24]
In 1991, the Foundation received the Large Nonprofit Organization of the Year award as part of the Pantheon of Leather Awards.[25] The Foundation donated $1 million towards the 1993 establishment of the Robert Mapplethorpe Residence, a six-story townhouse for long-term residential AIDS treatment on East 17th Street in New York City, in partnership with the Beth Israel Medical Center.[26] The residence closed in 2015, citing financial difficulties.[27]
The Foundation also promotes fine art photography at the institutional level.[24] The Foundation helps determine which galleries represent Mapplethorpe's art.[28][29] In 2011, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation donated theRobert Mapplethorpe Archive, spanning from 1970 to 1989, to theGetty Research Institute.[30]
Mapplethorpe worked primarily in a studio, and almost exclusively produced black-and-white photography, with the exception of some of his later work and his final exhibit "New Colors". His body of work features a wide range of subjects and the greater part of his work is on erotic imagery. He would refer to some of his own work as pornographic,[21] with the aim of arousing the viewer, but which could also be regarded ashigh art.[31]
Hiserotic art explored a wide range of sexual subjects, depicting theBDSM subculture of New York in the 1970s, portrayals of black male nudes, andclassical nudes of female bodybuilders.[31] One of the black models he worked with regularly was Derrick Cross, whose pose for the self-titled image in 1983 has been compared to theFarnese Hercules.[32] Mapplethorpe was a participant observer for much of his erotic photography, participating in the sexual acts which he was photographing and engaging his models sexually.[31]
His work often made reference to religious or classical imagery, such as a 1975 portrait of Patti Smith[34] from 1986 which recallsAlbrecht Dürer's1500 self-portrait. Between 1980 and 1983, Mapplethorpe created over 150 photographs of bodybuilderLisa Lyon, culminating in the 1983 photobookLady, Lisa Lyon, published byViking Press and with text byBruce Chatwin.
Robert took areas of dark human consent and made them into art. He worked without apology, investing the homosexual with grandeur, masculinity, and enviable nobility. Without affectation, he created a presence that was wholly male without sacrificing feminine grace. He was not looking to make a political statement or an announcement of his evolving sexual persuasion. He was presenting something new, something not seen or explored as he saw and explored it. Robert sought to elevate aspects of male experience, to imbue homosexuality with mysticism. AsCocteau said of aGenet poem, "His obscenity is never obscene."
In the summer of 1989, a traveling solo exhibit by Mapplethorpe brought national attention to the issues of public funding for the arts, as well as questions of censorship and the obscene. TheCorcoran Gallery of Art inWashington, D.C., agreed to be one of the host museums for the tour. Mapplethorpe decided to show his latest series that he explored shortly before his death. TitledRobert Mapplethorpe:The Perfect Moment, the show included photographs from his X Portfolio, which featured images ofurophagia, gayBDSM and a self-portrait with abullwhip inserted in his anus.[36] It also featured photos of two children with exposed genitals.[37][38]
The show was curated by Janet Kardon of theInstitute of Contemporary Art inPhiladelphia.[39][40] The ICA was awarded a grant from theNational Endowment for the Arts to support Mapplethorpe's exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The Corcoran cancelled the show, terminating its contract with the ICA, because it did not want to get involved in the political issues that it raised, but instead the gallery was pulled into the controversy, which "intensified the debate waged both in the media and in Congress surrounding the NEA's funding of projects perceived by some individuals ... to be inappropriate."[41]
The hierarchy of the Corcoran and several members of theUnited States Congress were upset when the works were revealed to them, due to thehomoerotic andsadomasochistic themes of some of the work. Though much of his work throughout his career had been regularly displayed in publicly funded exhibitions, conservative and religious organizations such as theAmerican Family Association seized on this exhibition to vocally oppose government support for what they called "nothing more than the sensational presentation of potentially obscene material."[42]
In June 1989,pop artistLowell Blair Nesbitt became involved in the censorship issue. Nesbitt, a long-time friend of Mapplethorpe, revealed that he had a $1.5-million bequest to the museum in his will, but publicly promised that if the museum refused to host the exhibition, he would revoke the bequest. The Corcoran refused and Nesbitt bequeathed the money to thePhillips Collection instead. After the Corcoran refused the Mapplethorpe exhibition, the underwriters of the exhibition went to the nonprofitWashington Project for the Arts,[43] which showed all the images in its space from July 21 to August 13, 1989, to large crowds.[44][45]
In 1990, theContemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, which had also shown the exhibit, andDennis Barrie, then-director of the center, were charged with obscenity; photographs that depicted men in sadomasochistic poses were the basis of charges that the museum and its director had pandered obscenity. They were found not guilty by a jury.[46]
According to the ICA, "The Corcoran's decision sparked a controversial national debate: Should tax dollars support the arts? Who decides what is 'obscene' or 'offensive' in public exhibitions? And if art can be considered a form offree speech, is it a violation of theFirst Amendment to revoke federal funding on grounds of obscenity? To this day, these questions remain very much at issue."[39][47] Mapplethorpe became something of acause célèbre for both sides of the Americanculture war. Prices for many of the Mapplethorpe photographs doubled and even tripled as a consequence of the attention. The artist's notoriety supposedly also helped the posthumous sale atChristie's auction house of Mapplethorpe's collection of furniture, pottery, silver and works by other artists, which brought about $8 million.[48]
In 1998, theUniversity of Central England was involved in a controversy when a library book by Mapplethorpe was confiscated. A final-year undergraduate student was writing a paper on the work of Mapplethorpe and intended to illustrate the paper with a few photographs made fromMapplethorpe, a book of the photographer's work. She took the film to a local shop to be developed and the staff there informedWest Midlands Police because of the unusual nature of the images.[49][50][51]
The police confiscated the library book from the student and informed the university that two photographs in the book would have to be removed. If the university agreed to the removal (which it did not) the book would be returned. The two photographs, which were deemed possibly prosecutable as obscenity, were "Helmut and Brooks, NYC, 1978", which shows analfisting, and "Jim and Tom, Sausalito, 1977", which is of a man clad in a dog collar, a leather mask and trousers, urinating into another man's mouth."[49][50][51]
After a delay of about six months, the affair came to an end when Peter Knight, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, was informed that no legal action would be taken.[50][51] The book was returned to the university library without removal of the photographs.[52]
The 1986 solo exhibition "Black Males" and the subsequent bookThe Black Book sparked controversy for their depiction of black men. The images, erotic depictions of black men, were widely criticized for being exploitative.[53][54][55] The work was largelyphallocentric and sculptural, focusing on segments of the subject's bodies. His purported intention with these photographs and the use of black men as models was the pursuit of thePlatonic ideal.[21] Mapplethorpe's initial interest in the black male form was inspired by films likeMandingo (1975) and the interrogation scene inCruising (1980), in which an unknown black character enters the interrogation room and slaps the protagonist across the face.[56]
Criticism was the subject of a work by American conceptual artistGlenn Ligon, Notes on the Margins of the Black Book (1991–1993). Ligon juxtaposes Mapplethorpe's 91 images of black men in the 1988 publicationBlack Book with critical texts and personal reactions about the work to complicate the racial undertones of the imagery.[57]
American poet and activistEssex Hemphill also expressed criticism in his anthologyBrother to Brother (1991). Although he believed that Mapplethorpe's work reflected exceptional talent, Hemphill also believed that it displayed a lack of concern for gay black men, "except as sexual subjects".[58]
WhenMapplethorpe: A Biography byPatricia Morrisroe was published by Random House in 1995,[21] theWashington Post Book World described it as "Mesmerizing ... Morrisroe has succeeded in re-creating the photographer's world of light and dark."[60] Art criticArthur C. Danto, writing inThe Nation, praised it as "utterly admirable ... The clarity and honesty of Morrisroe's portrait are worthy of its subject."[61]
In September 1999, Arena Editions publishedPictures, a monograph that reintroduced Mapplethorpe's sex pictures. In 2000,Pictures was seized by twoSouth Australian plain-clothes detectives from anAdelaide bookshop in the belief that the book breached indecency andobscenity laws.[63] Police sent the book to theCanberra-basedOffice of Film and Literature Classification after the state Attorney-General's Department deftly decided not to get involved in the mounting publicity storm. Eventually, the OFLC board agreed unanimously that the book, imported from the United States, should remain freely available and unrestricted.[64]
In September 2007, Prestel publishedMapplethorpe: Polaroids, a collection of 183 of approximately 1,500 existing Mapplethorpe polaroids.[69] This book accompanies an exhibition by theWhitney Museum of American Art in May 2008.
In June 2016, Belgian fashion designerRaf Simons debuted his men's Spring 2017 collection inspired by Mapplethorpe's work and featuring several of his photographs printed onto shirts, jackets, and smocks.[71][72]
In 2019 and 2020, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City hostedImplicit Tensions, an exhibition of many of Mapplethorpe's works.[81]
In collaboration with the Mapplethorpe Foundation, jeweler Gaia Repossi created a jewelry collection inspired by Mapplethorpe in 2021.[82]
In 2022,Isaac Cole Powell played a character inAmerican Horror Story: NYC named 'Theo Graves' loosely inspired by Mapplethorpe's life as an erotic photographer, relationship with his mentor and art curatorSam Wagstaff, and death from HIV/AIDS complications.
Hollinghurst, Alan; Morgan, Stuart (1983).Robert Mapplethorpe: 1970–1983. London: Institute of Contemporary Arts.ISBN0-905263-31-6.
Mapplethorpe, Robert; Chatwin, Bruce (1983).Lady, Lisa Lyon. New York: Viking Press.ISBN0-670-43012-9.
Mapplethorpe, Robert (1985).Certain People: A Book of Portraits. Pasadena, CA: Twelvetrees Press.ISBN0-942642-14-7.
Mapplethorpe, Robert; Shange, Ntozake (1986).Black Book. New York: St. Martin's Press.ISBN0-312-08302-5.
Marshall, Richard; Mapplethorpe, Robert (1986).50 New York Artists: A Critical Selection of Painters and Sculptors Working in New York. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.ISBN0-87701-403-5.
Kardon, Janet; Joselit, David; Larson, Kay (1988).Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment. Philadelphia: Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania.ISBN0-88454-046-4.
Mapplethorpe, Robert (1990).Flowers. Boston: Bulfinch Press.ISBN0-8212-1781-X.
Cheim, John (1991).Early Works 1970–1974. New York: Robert Miller Gallery.ISBN0-944680-36-4.
Celant, Germano (1992).Mapplethorpe. Milan: Electa/Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.ISBN88-435-3647-8.
Celant, Germano; Ippolitov, Arkadiĭ; Vail, Karole P B; Blessing, Jennifer (2004).Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition: Photographs and Mannerist Prints. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.ISBN0-89207-312-8.
Celant, Germano (2005).Robert Mapplethorpe: Tra Antico e Moderno. Un'antologia. Turin, Italy: Palazzina della Promotrice delle Belle Arti.ISBN88-762-4610-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Robert Mapplethorpe, Fotografie, Centro di Documentazione di Palazzo Fortuny, Venice. Traveled to Palazzo Delle Cento Finestre, Florence (1984). Catalogue with text by Germano Celant.
1987:
Robert Mapplethorpe 1986, Raab Galerie, Berlin; Kicken-Pauseback Galerie, Cologne. Catalogue with interview by Anne Horton.[85]
Robert Mapplethorpe,Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy (1992);Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1992); Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Prato, Italy (1993); Residence of Ambassador Negroponte, Manila, Philippines (1993); Museo Pecci Prato, Prato, Italy (1993); Turun Taidemuseo, Turku, Finland (1993);Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels (1993); Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (1994);Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (1994); KunstHaus, Wien, Vienna (1994); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (1995);Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth (1995);City Gallery Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand (1995);Hayward Gallery, London (1996); Gallery of Photography, Dublin (1996); Museo de Art Moderna, São Paulo(1997); Staatdgalerie, Stuttgart (1997). Catalogue with text by Germano Celant.[87]
Robert Mapplethorpe, Tokyo Teien Museum, Tokyo. Curated by Toshio Shimizu. Traveled to ATM Contemporary Art Gallery, Mito, Japan; The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, Japan; Nagoya City Art Museum, Nagoya, Japan; The Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, Japan.[88]
1996:
Les Autoportraits de Mapplethorpe, Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris.[89]
1997:Robert Mapplethorpe, Mitsukoshi Museum of Art, Shinjuku, Japan. Curated by Richard D. Marshall, Noriko Fuku, and Hiroaki Hayakawa. Traveled to Takashimaya "Grand Hall", Osaka; Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukishima; Hokkaido Asahikawa Museum of Art, Asahikawa; Sogo Museum of Art, Yokohama; Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Kagawa.[86]
1999:Robert Mapplethorpe, Centre Cultural La Beneficencia, Valencia, Spain.[86]
2002:Robert Mapplethorpe Retrospective, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sapporo, Japan. Curated by Toshio Shimizu.[87]
2010:Robert Mapplethorpe, NRW-Forum Kultur Wirtschaft, Düsseldorf. Traveled to:C/O Berlin, Berlin (2011);Fotografiska Stockholm, Stockholm (2011)[101]; Forma Foundation for Photography, Milan (2011); Ludwig Museum, Budapest (2012).[102]
2011:
Robert Mapplethorpe curated byPedro Almodóvar, Galeria Elvira Gonzalez, Madrid.[103]
Artist Rooms Scottish Tour: Robert Mapplethorpe, Dunoon Burgh Hall, Dunoon, UK. Traveled to: The Gallery atLinlithgow Burgh Halls, Linlithgow, UK, Perth Museum & Art Gallery, Perth, UK (2012), Old Gala House, Galashiels, UK (2013).[106]
Robert Mapplethorpe: Pictures,Serralves Foundation, Porto, Portugal.[125]
Robert Mapplethorpe. Coreografia per una mostra / Choreography for an Exhibition, Madre museum,Naples, Italy. Curated by Laura Valente and Andrea Viliani.
2019:
Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now,Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. January 25 – July 10, 2019 and July 24, 2019 – January 5, 2020[126]
^Glueck, Grace."Fallen Angel",The New York Times, June 25, 1995. Retrieved October 14, 2007. "Growing up in a blue-collar precinct of Floral Park and steeped in Catholicism, Mapplethorpe developed — to his alarm — an adolescent interest in gay pornographic magazines ... So, at Pratt Institute, where his father had studied Engineering and Robert majored in Graphic Arts (but stopped short of getting a degree) ..."
^Jones, William E. (2016).True Homosexual Experiences: Boyd McDonald and Straight to Hell. We Heard You Like Books. p. 75.ISBN978-0-9964218-1-2.
^Fritscher, Jack (1994).Robert Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera. Hastings House. pp. 189–190.
^Mapplethorpe's membership card for the Mineshaft can be seen in the 2016 documentaryMapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures (http://www.mapplethorpefilm.com. Retrieved April 22, 2016).
^abcdefMorrisroe, Patricia.Robert Mapplethorpe: a biography. New York: Random House, 1995. pp. 297, 126ISBN0-394-57650-0
^Wilson, Scott.Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Locations 29890-29891). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.
^Thorgerson, Storm; Powell, Aubrey (November 1999).100 Best Album Covers: The Stories Behind the Sleeves (1st American ed.). Dorling Kindersley. p. 74.ISBN0-7894-4951-X.
^The federal government and the states have long been permitted to limit obscenity or pornography. However, the exact definition of obscenity and pornography has changed over time. (See alsoI know it when I see it.)
^Fritscher, Jack. Mapplethorpe: assault with a deadly camera : a pop culture memoir, an outlaw reminiscence. Mamaroneck, NY: Hastings House, 1994. Print.
^Duberman, Martin (2014).Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill and the Battlefield of AIDS. New York:The New Press. pp. 169–170.ISBN978-1-59558-945-3.
Marshall, Richard; Howard, Richard; Sischy, Ingrid.Robert Mapplethorpe. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art in association with New York Graphic Society Books, 1988.ISBN0-87427-060-X
Veith, Gene Edward.State of the arts: from Bezalel to Mapplethorpe. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991.ISBN0-89107-608-5
Ellenzweig, Allen.The homoerotic photograph: male images from Durieu/Delacroix to Mapplethorpe. New York: Columbia University Press, 1992.ISBN0-231-07536-7
Fritscher, Jack.Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera: A Pop Culture Memoir, An Outlaw Reminiscence. Mamaroneck, NY: Hastings House, 1994.ISBN0-8038-9362-0
Fritscher, Jack. "What Happened When: Censorship, Gay History & Mapplethorpe", inCensorship: A World Encyclopedia, ed. Derek Jones, Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001,ISBN1-57958-135-8. Retrieved September 2, 2014
Jarzombek, Mark. "The Mapplethorpe trial and the paradox of its formalist and liberal defense: sights of contention."AppendX 2:58–81, Spring 1994.
Morrisroe, Patricia.Robert Mapplethorpe: a biography. New York: Random House, 1995.ISBN0-394-57650-0
Danto, Arthur C.Playing with the edge: the photographic achievement of Robert Mapplethorpe. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.ISBN0-520-20051-9
Banham, Gary. "Mapplethorpe, Duchamp and the ends of photography".Angelaki 7(1):119–128, 2002.
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