Mapplethorpe

Diapositivo · Aug 13, 2011

Was it Flaubert who said that a writer, in order to succeed, had to scandalize the conformist? (Il faut épater le bourgeois where bourgeois meant prudish, for sociological reasons we'll not delve into.).

IIRC there was a sense of irony or even self-irony in the expression, it was about how to "help yourself" go under the spotlight: be controversial, break some rule, raise some smoke! (It will work). Somebody will attack you (that spreads your fame). Somebody will defend you. Do stir a controversy and you'll be noticed.

Was it the case of Mapplethorpe's? (Nooooooooooooooooooo ).

I am not particularly cultivated in photography. But I have to say that I know Mapplethorpe for his "controversial" work not for his more mundane work. Am I an exception?

Fabrizio

PS Just to prevent somebody saying something around the concept of "you have to be a good writer, or a good photographer, anyway, for the trick to work" I am not denying it, neither was Flaubert. I think he said this jokingly about himself during the Madame Bovary trial. It stick because there is a truth in it that you can apply to many situations. Flaubert would have become a Great without any need to scandalize the prudish. I'm not sure about others though

Mainecoonmaniac · Aug 13, 2011

It's really easy to love Ansel Adam's beautiful images. Art of Maplethorpe is challenging as good art is at times.

CGW · Aug 13, 2011

For some much-needed context, Patti Smith's "Just Kids" is worth a look. Always worthwhile surveying the world that "makes" an artist.

2F/2F · Aug 13, 2011

CGW said:
...much-needed context...

indeed

tomalophicon · Aug 13, 2011

Fabrizio, I actually think this doesn't historically apply to photography. I think the most successful are usually the ones that don't scandalise anyone.
And Bill Henson probably will never work again.

tomalophicon · Aug 13, 2011

There is a also a great doco worth watching, entitled 'Black, white and Grey'... I think.

white.elephant · Aug 13, 2011

2F/2F said:
One of the most important albums to me. Pure genius in my eyes, especially considering the environment in which it was released.
[video=youtube;xxygqSTO1lQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxygqSTO1lQ[/video]

I consider myself to be fortunate to have seen Ms. Smith on the tour she and the group did right after the release of Horses. She mixed her poetry seamlessly with cuts from the album. Two tables over from me sat Ginsberg and Warhol. Ginsberg screamed praise at Ms. Smith all night long. It was quite an evening.

Maris · Aug 13, 2011

johnielvis said:
he woudn't have amounted to much if he wasn't sam wagstaff's "boy"....wagstaff set him up with equpment, space, darkroom services--finest in the world--and heavy duty connections in the art world and also celebrity/rich folks connections.

Wagstaff got maplethorpe's stuff shown because he threw around a LOT of money in galleries...he was rich rich rich.

Exactly right! Robert Mapplethorpe gained millions of dollars courtesy of Sam Wagstaff to indulge any whim; photographic or otherwise. Given an unlimited budget, the best equipment, best studios, best models, set designers, lighting guys, darkroom services, publishers and publicists, plus guaranteed entry to the most prestigious galleries he could scarcely fail.

Given those resources virtually anyone in APUG who had a life devouring obsession and the energy to match it would do better.

CGW · Aug 13, 2011

Maris said:
Exactly right! Robert Mapplethorpe gained millions of dollars courtesy of Sam Wagstaff to indulge any whim; photographic or otherwise. Given an unlimited budget, the best equipment, best studios, best models, set designers, lighting guys, darkroom services, publishers and publicists, plus guaranteed entry to the most prestigious galleries he could scarcely fail.

Given those resources virtually anyone in APUG who had a life devouring obsession and the energy to match it would do better.

I think you're disparaging "patronage," what's made the wheels go round in the art world for many moons.

Of course Mapplethorpe didn't do his own printing--neither did Avedon or C-B for that matter.

Art without commerce is a hobby. Mapplethorpe was no hobbyist. Why the sour grapes?

semi-ambivalent · Aug 13, 2011

I went to a poetry reading by Ginsberg in Denver a long time ago. I think he was in town for some function at the Naropa Institute in Boulder and he read at the library downtown. He read and talked and played and sang hymns on this crazy little foot-powered accordian-organ-TV-tray thing. He took questions, the best of which was from some middle-aged guy angry about some earlier remark: "As an artist, what about your responsibility to the public?" To which Ginsberg shot back "The artist has none." I've never liked Ginsberg that much, and still don't. But I respect him for that.

Michael W · Aug 13, 2011

tomalophicon said:
Fabrizio, I actually think this doesn't historically apply to photography. I think the most successful are usually the ones that don't scandalise anyone.
And Bill Henson probably will never work again.

????????????
He had a show last year at Roslyn Oxley

Gerald C Koch · Aug 14, 2011

Speaking in general and not of Mapplethorpe in particular, the depiction of the male form has always been judged by a different standard. Take two photographs with the model in the same pose. The first shows a female nude and the second a male nude. The first may be judged as art while the second is deemed erotic, perhaps even worse homo-erotic, whatever that means. Unfortunately, people see what they have been conditioned to see. Is the Picasso painting "Boy Leading a Horse" art or is it pornography? Would a similar photograph by von Gloeden be art or pornography? What if the subject were female?

tomalophicon · Aug 14, 2011

Michael W said:
????????????
He had a show last year at Roslyn Oxley

Thanks Michael, my mistake.

Steve Smith · Aug 14, 2011

white.elephant said:
I consider myself to be fortunate to have seen Ms. Smith on the tour she and the group did right after the release of Horses.

A couple of years ago I was her sound engineer for an evening of music and poetry reading at Farringford House, the former home of poet Alfred Tennyson. She also had an exhibition of Polaroid images a few hundred yards down the road at Dimbola Lodge which was the home of Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and is now a photographic museum and gallery. I also had afternoon tea with her in Dimbola's café!

Steve.

tomalophicon · Aug 14, 2011

Is it uncool to view Patti Smith as boring?

2F/2F · Aug 14, 2011

Gerald C Koch said:
The first may be judged as art while the second is deemed erotic, perhaps even worse homo-erotic, whatever that means.

Art and eroticism are far from mutually exclusive, as you paint them here.

You can simply look up homoerotic in the dictionary if you don't know what it means.

TheFlyingCamera · Aug 14, 2011

Gerald C Koch said:
Speaking in general and not of Mapplethorpe in particular, the depiction of the male form has always been judged by a different standard. Take two photographs with the model in the same pose. The first shows a female nude and the second a male nude. The first may be judged as art while the second is deemed erotic, perhaps even worse homo-erotic, whatever that means. Unfortunately, people see what they have been conditioned to see. Is the Picasso painting "Boy Leading a Horse" art or is it pornography? Would a similar photograph by von Gloeden be art or pornography? What if the subject were female?

There are plenty of male nudes in art that are not erotic... and you're certainly pre-imposing a value judgment on the nude content even before you see it. Why is "Homo-erotic" (as you put it) WORSE than just erotic? By stating it that way, you've already condemned eroticism in general, and homoeroticism in particular. Might I remind you that without eroticism, you would not be on this planet today.

Picasso's boy leading a horse is certainly not erotic in intent - it's about comparing the two physical forms. But you could make an argument that A: it certainly has erotic side-effects, and that B: more likely, it's a big old dirty joke. Naked boy=naked horse, and we all know what horses are a stand-in for vis-a-vis male anatomy and the male ego. Picasso was a famously perverted, dirty old man, and making such a joke would be well within his mindset to do. If you doubt me, go to the Picasso museum in Barcelona some time and take a look at the pornographic cartoons he did that are on display there.

Boy Leading a Horse is NOT pornographic because it is not depicting a sex act nor anything intending to provoke a sexual response as its primary effect. If Von Gloeden made a similar photograph, I would argue that it was no more pornographic than Boy Leading a Horse because it was in fact similar to the painting. If the boy had an erection, then you could make an argument it was porn.

Erik Petersson · Aug 14, 2011

There is currently a large Mapplethorp show in Stockholm, at Fotografiska Museet. Both pictures with flowers, and the nudes discussed above are in the show. Well worth a visit if your'e in town.

Monito · Aug 14, 2011

tomalophicon said:
Is it uncool to view Patti Smith as boring?

Yes.

benjiboy · Aug 14, 2011

I don't know if Maplethorpe's pictures are "porn".or "uncool", but they certainly are a lot of cock

Jeff Kubach · Aug 14, 2011

benjiboy said:
I don't know if Maplethorpe's pictures are "porn".or "uncool", but they certainly are a lot of cock

!

Jeff

Gerald C Koch · Aug 14, 2011

the

2F/2F said:
Art and eroticism are far from mutually exclusive, as you paint them here.

You can simply look up homoerotic in the dictionary if you don't know what it means.

I never said that art and eroticism were mutually exclusive. But to many people they are exclusive. That was my point. I enjoyed your pun using the word paint.

I have a problem with the word homoerotic. It implies that the subject is erotic only to homosexuals. It seems to exclude that the subject might also be attractive to women. It is used as a perjorative in that it seeks to maginalize the subject.

One last point. One of the first things writer's learn is to avoid using a twenty dollar word when a two bit word would work as well. The word "erotic" seems a better choice.

Sparky · Aug 15, 2011

I'm not sure people have their radars plugged in on this question exactly. I don't think the original poster was referring to the tasteful male nudes. But more like the penis vivisection photos and stuff like that.

My response would be - he did BOTH - art and porn/experimental/extreme stuff. Some of it is up for question for sure, as to it's validity as art. But he did a lot of stuff also purely for his own interest/amusement/whatever you want to call it - stuff that I don't think he ever really meant to be all that public...

Sparky · Aug 15, 2011

I think maybe you're falling into a commonly held misconception - one that is no stranger to this place. That the quality of the work is a function of the amount of money spent on equipment. Mapplethorpe had a hell of an eye though. SURE his success was facilitated to a large extent - but who's success is NOT facilitated? Just HOW do you think legends are made? It takes a LOT of connections and mucho dinero etc... but at least he had some real talent. I doubt many people such as you mention could have come close...

Maris said:
Exactly right! Robert Mapplethorpe gained millions of dollars courtesy of Sam Wagstaff to indulge any whim; photographic or otherwise. Given an unlimited budget, the best equipment, best studios, best models, set designers, lighting guys, darkroom services, publishers and publicists, plus guaranteed entry to the most prestigious galleries he could scarcely fail.

Given those resources virtually anyone in APUG who had a life devouring obsession and the energy to match it would do better.

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