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6 Things you Need to Know About Robert Mapplethorpe

This summer, a large retrospective exhibition celebrating the career of famed photographer Robert Mapplethorpe will be making a stop in Canada, en route to a global tour. Focus: Perfection Robert Mapplethorpe (on view September 10, 2016—January 22, 2017 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts) includes 224 works that span his career from the early 1970s until his untimely death in 1989. The exhibition, which was originally developed by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum, includes a host of works such as his erotic nudes, celebrity portraiture, floral still lifes, along with archival material that has never been seen before.

In anticipation of the exhibition’s launch in a few weeks, we’ve got the six things you need to know about Mapplethorpe, courtesy of the MMFA’s in-house curator Diane Charbonneau.

Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) Patti Smith 1978 Gelatin silver print Image: 35.3 × 35 cm Gift of The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation to the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art 2012.52.28 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.
Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) Patti Smith 1978 Gelatin silver print Image: 35.3 × 35 cm Gift of The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation to the J. Paul Getty Trust and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art 2012.52.28 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.

1. Mix and Match

After studying art at the Pratt Institute in the ’60s, Mapplethorpe first started his career in publicity and graphic design, before moving on to sculpture and painting. He worked extensively in assemblage and collage, looking to artists like Robert Rauschenberg and Marcel Duchamp as inspiration. He had limited funds, so daily materials from around his home made their way into his sculptures—a fashion element like a jacket might be turned into a sculpture, while elements of a sculpture might turn into something wearable for a night on the town.

2. Serendipitous Shutterbug

While primarily known for his photography, Mapplethorpe came into the photographic arts later in life, and almost accidentally at that. Someone lent him a polaroid camera, and he began playing around with it. Then, somebody gave him a Hasselblad (a medium-sized camera) and he was hooked. The remainder of his career was dedicated to creating the erotic nudes and floral still lifes he is renowned for.

3. Paparazzo, Please

He was approached by many a celebrity of his day requesting to be photographed, as he had an uncanny ability to reach deep into his subjects’ souls and celebrate their unique presence in his imagery. For example, he photographed album covers for Patti Smith—who he lived with before getting involved with a “series of male lovers”—portraits of celebrities like Paloma Picasso, Richard Gere, Andy Warhol, Patti Smith, and Yoko Ono.

4. A Neo-Neoclassicist

Following in the spirit of neoclassical Renaissance artists like Michelangelo (who championed the perfection of the human form with his magisterial nude sculptures and paintings), Mapplethorpe celebrates the beauty of the body in his work—whether man or woman, black or white. “He’s a neo-neoclassic photographer, I guess you could say,” muses Charbonneau, also listing Rodin as a later influence. “His passion for the sitter always comes through, whether it be a celebrity, a lover, a friend…there’s this understanding of who the person is.”

5. Man of (and Ahead of) his Time

“His work is so iconic because of the time period in which he took these photos,” explains Charbonneau. New York in the ’70s and ’80s, nearing bankruptcy, was a challenging atmosphere to live in. Yet, the East Village was flourishing with galleries and music was thriving. “There was a real synergy of culture in that period,” says Charbonneau. Mapplethorpe captured this energetic spirit in his work, but also pushed the boundaries of the fabric of his society by glorifying homoerotic and African American imagery in his nude portraiture. “This is not documentary photography,” says Charbonneau. “His homoerotic photos are about him living in this community; he’s saying: ‘this is who I am.'”

6. Picture Perfect(ionist)

“Patti Smith described him as a really lovely person,” and he was “surrounded by people that really believed in what he was doing,” says Charbonneau. Yet, he was a perfectionist in his quest for aesthetic beauty. He was demanding of his subjects, but also demanding of himself, and was extremely self-aware of his image, which Charbonneau says comes through in the self portraits that will be on display.

 

 

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