WEEK 3: HISTORY PROJECT. Talk about an influential photographer in history.
R o b e r t M a p p l e t h o r p e
Self portrait
Born in Queens, New York, in 1946, Robert Mapplethorpe had this to say aboutabout his childhood, "I come from suburban America. It was a very safe environment and it was a good place to come from in that it was a good place to leave."
His sexually explicit, often homoerotic, photographs of the New York S&M scene in the late 1970s shocked many people and created national debate over the public funding of art.
Mapplethorpe told ARTnews in late 1988, "I don't like that particular word 'shocking.' I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before … I was in a position to take those pictures. I felt an obligation to do them."
He enrolled at the Pratt Institute where he studied drawing, painting and sculpture. His first camera was a Polaroid, graduating to a Hasselblad medium format. Throughout the 80s, Mapplethorpe's images both challenged and followed classic artistic standards. His stylized images explored gender, race, and sexuality, generating controversy and becoming hallmarks of the period.
Meticulously lit, delicate flower still lifes transformed a moribund genre into an important contemporary theme. He introduced and refined different techniques and formats, including color 20" x 24" Polaroids, photogravures, platinum prints on paper and linen, Cibachrome and dye transfer color prints.
His work was a powerful influence on the contemporary art scene. In 1986 he was diagnosed with AIDS. The Whitney Museum of American Art exhibited his first retrospective in 1988. He died in 1989. Today his work is represented by and exhibited in major galleries and museums around the world. He is considered one of the most important artists of the twentieth century.
Patti Smith, debut album cover, 1975, Horses. This photo challenged conventional ideas of what a female musician should look like.