Photography
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
autre
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
autre
Robert MAPPLETHORPE

Introduction

Robert Mapplethorpe was born in 1946 in Floral Park, Queens.

In 1963, Mapplethorpe enrolled at Pratt Institute in nearby Brooklyn, where he studied drawing, painting, and sculpture. Influenced by artists such as Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp, he also experimented with various materials in mixed-media collages, including images cut from books and magazines. In 1969, he and Patti Smith, whom he had met three years earlier, moved into the Chelsea Hotel. Mapplethorpe acquired a Polaroid camera in 1970 from artist and filmmaker Sandy Daley and began producing his own photographs to incorporate into the collages, saying he felt "it was more honest."

Mapplethorpe quickly found satisfaction taking Polaroid photographs in their own right and indeed few Polaroids actually appear in his mixed-media works. In 1973, the Light Gallery in New York City mounted his first solo gallery exhibition, "Polaroids." Two years later he acquired a Hasselblad medium-format camera and began shooting his circle of friends and acquaintances?artists, musicians, socialites, film stars, and members of the S & M underground. He also worked on commercial projects, creating album cover art, including covers for Patti Smith and Television and a series of portraits and party pictures for Interview Magazine.

 


In the late 1970s, Mapplethorpe grew increasingly interested in documenting the New York S & M scene. The resulting photographs are shocking for their content and remarkable for their technical and formal mastery. His career continued to flourish. In 1977, he participated in Documenta 6 in Kassel, West Germany and in 1978, the Robert Miller Gallery in New York City became his exclusive dealer.

 


Throughout the 1980s, Mapplethorpe produced images that simultaneously challenge and adhere to classical aesthetic standards: stylized compositions of male and female nudes, delicate flower still lifes, and studio portraits of artists and celebrities, to name a few of his preferred genres.

In 1986, he was diagnosed with AIDS. Despite his illness, he accelerated his creative efforts, broadened the scope of his photographic inquiry, and accepted increasingly challenging commissions. The Whitney Museum of American Art mounted his first major American museum retrospective in 1988, one year before his death in 1989.

His vast, provocative, and powerful body of work has established him as one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. 

 

Exhibitions

Henry LEWIS / Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Bettina RHEIMS / Wilhelm von GLOEDEN / Joel-Peter WITKIN
Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Pierre MOLINIER / Bettina RHEIMS / Joel-Peter WITKIN
Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Lisette MODEL / Joel-Peter WITKIN
Vicky COLOMBET / DUBUFFET / Max ERNST / Sol LEWITT / Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Elissa MARCHAL
Charles AUBRY / Joël DUCORROY / Henri FOUCAULT / Emile GALLE / Mi-Hyun KIM / Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Mathilde NARDONE
Ayana V. JACKSON / Chrystèle LERISSE / Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Jeanloup SIEFF / Joel-Peter WITKIN
Ayana V. JACKSON / Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Lisette MODEL / Joel-Peter WITKIN
Juliette-Andréa ELIE / Raoul HAUSMANN / Ayana V. JACKSON / Auguste et Louis Lumière / Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Robert RAUSCHENBERG / Louis-Rémy ROBERT / Tomas VAN HOUTRYVE
Patrick BAILLY-MAITRE-GRAND / BRASSAÏ / Juliette-Andréa ELIE / André KERTESZ / Chrystèle LERISSE / Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Willy RONIS / Joel-Peter WITKIN
Patrick BAILLY-MAITRE-GRAND / Juliette-Andréa ELIE / Ayana V. JACKSON / Arezu KARUBI / Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Guglielmo PLUSCHOW / Wilhelm von GLOEDEN / Joel-Peter WITKIN
Mathieu BERNARD-REYMOND / Yves GELLIE / Ayana V. JACKSON / Peter KNAPP / Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Philippe PERRIN / Joel-Peter WITKIN
Robert MAPPLETHORPE
Paul Delvaux / DUBUFFET / Sol LEWITT / Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Lisette MODEL / Germaine RICHIER / Joel-Peter WITKIN
Gilles Desrozier / Ayana V. JACKSON / André KERTESZ / Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Patrick WILLOCQ / Joel-Peter WITKIN
Javier BALMASEDA / Luciano Castelli / Chu Teh Chun / Alain CLEMENT / Joël DUCORROY / Charles Christopher HILL / Tschang-Yeul KIM / Francis LIMERAT / Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Ivan MESSAC / Evsa MODEL / Gloria Petyarre / Jaume PLENSA / Julian Schnabel / Sung-Hy SHIN / Vladimir SKODA / Antoni Tàpies / Joel-Peter WITKIN / A-Sun WU
Charles AUBRY / Mathieu BERNARD-REYMOND / Robert MAPPLETHORPE / Paul OUTERBRIDGE / Robert RAUSCHENBERG / Joel-Peter WITKIN

Publication

Robert Mapplethorpe et Patti Smith - Portraits et Dessins
artists :
author : Robert Mapplethorpe

editeur : Baudoin Lebon
langue : Français/Anglais
pays : France
pages : 96
format : 21 x 16.5 cm
reliure : Broché
prix public : 20 euros

 


Robert Mapplethorpe - Les Autoportraits de Mapplethorpe
artists :

auteur : Jean-Michel Ribettes
editeur : Baudoin Lebon
langue : Français
pages : 96
format : 21 x 16 cm
reliure : Broché
prix public : 20 ?