cypher13: I don't know if I should admit this, but back in the days when I lived in the Chelsea Hotel, I knew Robert Mapplethorpe. I did not become friendly with him; his was not the kind of personality that mixes well with mine. We had a casual acquaintance that was struck up in elevator and lobby conversation and mostly centered on photographic topics. I did not know who he was until some months after I first met him, and he did not achieve his notoriety until just before his death; after his death, his reputation took off like a skyrocket. There are some things that you should know about him:
1. A lot of these "controversial" images were made for his own entertainment and the entertainment of a few of his close friends (of whom I was not one, but I have known several). Since his death, people have gone through his files and found this material and, because of its nature, it generates headlines and arouses the ire of closed-minded politicians. As I see it, there is nothing wrong with displaying the stuff, provided that you make it clear that the nature of these images will upset sensitive people. There always have been sensitive people, there always will be sensitive people and I, for one, respect their sensitivity, which is why I think it's a good thing that there is an "R" attached to many films. They have been warned and if they choose to go in and be offended, then they have no one to blame but themselves. Doing what a lot of these curators have done is an abuse of this sensitivity, which is wrong.
2. Some photographers, and here Ansel Adams and Minor White come immediately to mind, though there are many others who have both the eye and are superb printers. Mapplethorpe had the eye and was a superb photographer of flowers, fashion and the human anatomy. Pure and simple. For everything like the images of Marc Stevens - another unfortunate case if ever there was one - there are a hundred images of prosaic, albeit well-done and artistic, fashion work or a superb flower photograph. It's just that Mapplrthorpe was a lousy technician and had to have others print this material. In the process, a lot of these "extra" images were floating around photographic circles in lower Manhattan for a long time before Mapplethorpe died. People were just waiting for him to die so they could release this material (i.e., make it worth a great deal more money) and create a big controversy from which Mapplethorpe could neither defend himself nor benefit. To my way of thinking, this is abuse of the artist, the artist's work and the artist's reputation. Don't ever buy a signed Mapplethorpe print unless you get some sort of authentication or a lifetime right of return on it.
3. Finally, everyone who knew Mapplethorpe, even on the widest fringe of his circle - like me - knew what he was and what he was about. Was he a racist? If so, he never made that clear to me, but making him into a racist makes him so much more interesting to the biographer - I mean how could this man be a racist, right? Well, go through your own lives and there are doubtless many innocent comments someone remembers that could be taken out of context and make anyone into a racist. He was definitely interested in having fun in his own way and he was definitely born with a short fuse, meaning he knew he would die young, so he was going to make the most of it while he could. Thus, you have a story not at all unlike, say, James Dean in which he died young and many people remember him, but Mapplethorpe left a body of work that has yet to be fully understood in the context of its creation or its creator. All the biographers have sought to do is make the creator more interesting than the creation. Granted, there is a lot of material in Mapplethorpe's life to do this, but is it appropriate in any case?
The point of all this is, by all means read the biographies, but think and decide for yourselves.
A
