Gay Chicago Magazine

The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation has loaned out an exhibit of Mapplethorpe’s photos to the Block Museum of Northwestern University, 40 Arts Circle Dr., Evanston. “Polaroids: Mapplethorpe” features more than 90 Polaroid pictures shot between 1970 and 1975 before Mapplethorpe had developed his mature style. The exhibit runs until April 5th, with several related events scheduled. Check out www.blockmuseum. northwestern.edu for more information and tickets.

None much is known about the life of Robert Mapplethorpe. He was born in 1946, the third of six children living on Long Island. There were probably no deep dark secrets he wished to hide; he just didn’t think his past was that important or exciting. He summed up his childhood by saying, “It was a very safe environment, and it was a … good place to leave.”

Mapplethorpe’s fascination with the art world began early, because he was already producing artwork in a variety of media by the time he was attending college. He received a B.F.A. from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He had not taken any of his own photographs yet, but he was making art that incorporated many photographic images appropriated from other sources. He would scour through books and magazines, tearing out photos that intrigued him and inspired ideas for his paintings. Mapplethorpe was a great admirer of Andy Warhol, and his work followed Warhol’s own interest in culture as reflected through photographic imagery.

Mapplethorpe’s first photographs came soon after college. Using a Polaroid camera, he never considered himself a professional photographer or wanted to become known for having that skill. His interest in photography was to create photo images that he could then manipulate, exploit and incorporate into paintings. In fact, he admitted to never really liking photography, as either profession or art form in of itself. He preferred pictures as a physical object, something he could have the tactile sensation of holding in his hand and the emotional response it provoked within him.

His first Polaroids were self-portraits and the first of a series of portraits of his close friend, the singer-artist-poet Patti Smith. These early photos were often presented in collage-like format, grouped together or elaborately mounted in frames of different sizes, shapes and paint colors or surface treatments. Despite his dismissal of photography as an art form, it began to become his primary artistic medium in the mid-1970s.

Acquiring a large format press camera, Mapplethorpe began doing portraits of his ever-widening circle of friends, acquaintances and kindred spirits. The artists, composers, celebrities and socialites made for pretty benign subject matter, although he always framed them in interesting ways. Mapplethorpe’s notoriety began to grow with his choice of some other subjects. In a way, he legitimized the subculture of the sex industry by turning them into his counterculture fashion models. He shot porn stars and denizens of the S & M underground, and some of these photos evoked shock in “polite” circles. He defended his artistic decision by declaring simply that he liked to find the “unexpected.”

He never openly courted controversy, but his concentration on statuesque male and female nudes and the homoeroticism of his work earned the respect of many but the rancor of many more. This was during the increasingly conservative times of the Reagan Era. Remember this was the President that refused to utter the word “AIDS” during his eight years in office and the man who effectively murdered the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). With cut-back to arts organizations, such as theatres, operas, orchestras and museums, every penny spent on these programs offended someone somewhere.

In the early 1990s, a few years after his death, Mapplethorpe’s work sparked national attention when The Perfect Moment, a traveling exhibition funded by the NEA, included his X Portfolio series. The portfolio includes some of Mapplethorpe’s most explicit imagery. Even though his work had appeared in other publicly funded exhibitions, conservative and religious organizations seized on this exhibition to vocally oppose government support for what they deemed “obscene material.” As a result, Mapplethorpe became something of a cause célèbre for both sides of the American Culture war. The installation of The Perfect Moment in Cincinnati resulted in the unsuccessful prosecution of the Contemporary Arts Center of Cincinnati on charges of “pandering obscenity.”

Mapplethorpe died on March 9, 1989, in a Boston, Massachusetts hospital from complications arising from AIDS. He was 42 years old. During his final illness, almost a year before his death, he helped found the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation to protect his work, advance his creative vision and to promote causes that he cared about. Since his death, the Foundation has functioned as his official estate and helped promote his work throughout the world, as well as raising and donating millions of dollars to fund medical research in the fight against AIDS and HIV infection.♥

Cover Story

Mapplethorpe: Life Through the Lens

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