01/10/16
Robert Mapplethorpe: Objects
Galerie
Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg
29 August
– 19 November 2016
Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-89)
may be best known for his photographic works and controversial imagery of the
underground BDSM scene in the late 60s and early 70s of New York, but he didn’t really begin taking photographs until
he borrowed a Polaroid camera in 1971, and then later acquired a Hasselblad
medium format of his own. Before this point, he studied at the Pratt Institute
in Brooklyn, majoring in graphic art (although he dropped out in 1969 without completing
his degree). During this time, however, and in the years immediately following,
he made a large number of collages and three-dimensional assemblages, compiling
everyday objects and found images from (often pornographic) magazines. This
small, but enlightening and enriching exhibition at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Salzburg,
brings together 12 of these “objects”, rarely ever seen, and recently acquired
by the J Paul Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, set up by the artist before his death
from HIV/Aids-related complications at the age of 42.
The objects on display show a
clear graphic influence, with the triangle – representative of the Trinity and
the traditional portrayal of the Holy Family – recurring as a repeated
leitmotif throughout. One of six children, Mapplethorpe had a strict Catholic
upbringing, which permeates his work, even when its content becomes more
explicitly homosexual and contentious.
Read this review here