In today's session we watched a documentary on the American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, below are the notes i made while watching the documentary.
- Mapplethorpe was born in 1946, and passed away in 1989.
- Born in New York.
- He died of aids at just 43.
- Mapplethorpe was openly gay, and expressed this in a lot of his work.
- He went to the PRAT institute of art which is where he was first introduced to art.
- It was there that he first met his life long friend Patti Smith who he lived with in the early 70's
- In a lot of his pieces Mapplethorpe documented Manhattan's gay community which he was proudly part of.
- There was a lot of controversy regarding Mapplethorpe's work, and it was often questioned whether it was classed as pornography or not.
- Mapplethorpe was brought up as a catholic and the way he styled a lot of his shoots was based around this.
- He came out as gay to his mother but never to his father.
- He once said "i dont like to say a lot because if you say to much you loose some of that mystery."
- He didn't intend to shock his audience with his pieces, they were about him wanting to see things.
- He said he was " exploitative not self destructive."
- It can cost up to 15,000 dollars for one of his signed limited edition nudes and still life's"
- He never photographed or produced anything that wasn't already happening.
- Mapplethorpe was said to be ahead of his time and said that he was producing the photographs at the right time.
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