“The whole point of being an artist is to learn about yourself. The photographs, I think, are less important than the life that one is leading.” – Robert Mapplethorpe
Photography is a powerful medium of expression. It can convey emotions and sentiments accurately. Photography can evoke opinions and create depth at the moment captured, Visually bonding with the observer. The world of art has always been revolutionary. Artists can express the otherwise neglected, grow sympathy, and bring it to the public. Artists can get a sense of tremble with their work but they can also change the course of an era.
Robert Mapplethorpe was born in 1946 in the quiet, peaceful suburb of Queens. He was the third child of six children and his father was an electrical engineer by profession but an amateur photographer by interest. The upbringing of Mapplethorpe was quite religious. After completing high school in two years, he joined the Pratt Institute near Brooklyn. He started school with a major in Advertising design. College life proved as a way of experimentation and exploration because of the newfound freedom. Being 16, he continued pursuing his activities in ROTC and was also a part of the National Society of Pershing rifles. It was around this time that he began to question his sexual orientation. He also founds his passion in creating collages and assemblages which were a part of art assignments and despised his photography assignments.
In 1966, Mapplethorpe switched his major from advertising design to graphic design. Graphic design helped him in his personal growth and developed an interest in jewelry design. However, he dropped college in 1969, before he could achieve his B.FA. Around the same time, he stumbled across Patti Smith, who goes on to become his muse, lover, and eventually a lifelong cherished friend. They lived together in Brooklyn and then in the Chelsea hotel, where they would exchange their artwork with money to make rent, and began to explore various artistic mediums and styles. Smith shared the same passion and drive as Mapplethorpe to become an artist in New York and she became one of the most celebrated musicians later on.
Of the many inspirations of Mapplethorpe, of the artistic figures was Andy Warhol. Warhol had a successful art career and lived a wealthy and settled life in New York. Warhol too grew up in a middle-class background and was an outsider. Mapplethorpe idealized Warhol for his unique and artistic style and was fascinated by Warhol’s counterculture conduct and way of living.
In 1969, Mapplethorpe was hired as a photographer for Interview magazine which was co-founded by Warhol. The magazine photographed artists, celebrities, and musicians. As a struggling young artist, Mapplethorpe had a frail lifestyle and created artwork with less valued and cheap materials like paper, cardboard, magazine, and newspaper cutouts that were found on the street. It was in the late 1970s when Mapplethorpe introduced a polaroid SX-70 camera. Mapplethorpe was intrigued by the quick results that polaroid produced. He began clicking pictures of Smith and himself and began to experiment with the workings of a polaroid. (Biography – Mapplethorpe Foundation, n.d.)
In 1971, Mapplethorpe met James Mckendry who was a curator of photography and prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mckendry was very influential and thus it changed the course of Mapplethorpe’s career rapidly. Through Mckendry, Mapplethorpe was exposed to the professional side of his career. It was during this time that Mapplethorpe started considering photography as a serious means of expressing his artistic side, even though photography wasn’t considered a stream of fine art. Mapplethorpe continued his experimentation with polaroids, jewelry, and collages until 1972 when he was introduced to Sam Wagstaff. Wagstaff became an important aspect of Mapplethorpe’s professional and personal life. Wagstaff was a senior curator at Wadsworth Athenaeum and worked as a curator of contemporary art at the Detroit Institute of art. Wagstaff brought stability in Mapplethorpe’s life, became his financial support and lover, brought him a Hasselblad camera, and introduced him to the glamorous life of New York City. Mapplethorpe helped Wagstaff to come on good terms with his sexual identity. Mapplethorpe clicked a lot of portraits of himself with Wagstaff which showed the intimacy and trust they shared. Because of Wagsaff’s influential and outgoing social personality, Mapplethorpe had the first solo exhibition of his polaroids in 1973 in New York’s Light gallery. (Mapplethorpe, n.d.)
The mid-1970s saw a leap in Mapplethorpe’s career. There was a definitive language in his photography with portraits of celebrities, socialites, and close friends in a monochrome setting.
Over the next few years, he worked and produced a series of photo albums that were exhibited in galleries and open to public view. Over the years, from the start of his career till the end he took several self-portraits. One can observe the change in style and maturity of his artistic style methods through every self-portrait of his. His self-portraits depicted his embrace of nudity, spirituality, and eroticism. Mapplethorpe, later on, immersed himself in what was called the X portfolio. The X portfolio was a culmination of three projects: X, Homosexual Sadomasochistic imagery(1978), Y the floral still lives(1978), and Z the nude portraits of black men(1981). The X portfolio created a lot of controversy because of its contents, which showed raw and uninhibited portraits. The strong public reactions eventually changed Mapplethorpe’s reputation as a fine art pornographic photographer. (Mapplethorpe, 2016)
“I don’t photograph things I’ve not been involved with myself. I went into photography because it seemed like a perfect vehicle for commenting on the madness of today’s existence. I am trying to record the moment I’m living in and where I’m living which happens to be New York. As a statement of the time it’s not bad in terms of being accurate. These pictures could not have been done at any other time.”
-Robert Mapplethorpe
In 1982, Mapplethorpe picked a new interest by photographing a female bodybuilder, Lisa Lyron, who was the world’s first woman bodybuilder. Mapplethorpe was always fascinated by sculptural muscular forms that he liked to photograph with cinematic lighting. Photographing Lisa Lyon proved that Mapplethorpe was not just a pornographic photographer of men but of bodies as sculptures. His experiments with photographing body form also made him come up with photographic techniques. In 1983, he tried printing techniques on silver-dye bleach prints called Cibachrome, and platinum prints on canvas. The high-quality print with details helped him blur the boundaries between painting, sculptures, and portraits. (Mapplethorpe, 2016)
In 1986, Mapplethorpe was diagnosed with AIDS. The condition only made him accelerate his creative process. He had lost Wagstaff the year before that due to similar conditions and thus he wanted a way to make his legacy live after he was gone. And thus, in 1989, a year before he passed away, he established the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation trust that showed support for photography and provided to museums to promote photographic art. The foundation also worked towards funding AIDS and HIV treatments and research. His powerful and provocative art made him one of the most impressionable and bold artists of the century. His works have reached museums around South America, Europe, and Asian countries and continue to be a collection of admiration. (Biography – Mapplethorpe Foundation, n.d.)
References | Robert Mapplethorpe
Biography – Mapplethorpe Foundation. (n.d.). Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://www.mapplethorpe.org/biography
Mapplethorpe, R. (n.d.). Robert Mapplethorpe | The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. Guggenheim Museum. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/robert-mapplethorpe
Mapplethorpe, R. (2016, November 2). Robert Mapplethorpe Photography, Bio, Ideas | TheArtStory. The Art Story. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://www.theartstory.org/artist/mapplethorpe-robert/
