Robert Mapplethorpe Photography Analysis

Robert Mapplethorpe Photography AnalysisMapplethorpe Art or Pornography? maneuver the expression of creative skill through a visual medium much(prenominal) as paintingor sculpture.pornography printed or visual material intended to progress to informalexcitement. (1)The question of art versus pornography is one that has capacious dogged the visual Arts of all mediums. Nudes on stage, actors fornicating on screen, and artists painting, drawing, sculpting, or spuding naked subjects or explicit acts, have all been scrutinised, discussed and argued over. Some have until now been taken to court. Some depictions of naked forms do non blush cause a stir. Nobody protests against the Romantic images of naked men or of the paintings and sculptures by Pre-Raphaelite artists of nude mythological beings. What is it then that determines whether something is classified as art or pornography? I would postulate that it is not quite as simple as categorising a slash as one or the other, and I will discuss this during the course of this essay.We must at this point turn to the Oxford English dictionarys definition of pornography and the key word intended. The deciding factor depends to lie in the intention of the artist if he or she intends to stimulate sexual excitement the result will be pornographic. Mapplethorpe has admitted that his pieces argon homages to desire, and that he himself was sexually stimulated whilst photographing his male nude subjects. It would be unfair to say however, that his photographs be not expressive of creative skill. His images, which I will examine in greater detail later in the essay, are formally splendid and skillfully posed and jab. Can a piece of work be both art and pornography? Mapplethorpe himself insists that he makes pornography that is art (2). If an artists technique is masterful, why should the fact that the piece is sexually stimulating to others prevent it from being classed as art? Why cant a piece of art have multiple f unctions?Some view Mapplethorpes photography purely as pornography, believing it impossible to classify photographs of naked men and women as art. When Mapplethorpes retrospective exposition The Perfect Moment exhibited at the take of Contemporary Art, Republican Sen. Jesse Helms was the some forceful objective lensor. So outraged was the Senator that he would entertain around photographs from the exhibition to illustrate his point to journalists. One photograph he would often present was Rosie, showing a young girl of two or three pictured with her crotch exposed, which he argued constituted child pornography. Others have agreed with Helms. In 1996 the image was removed from a London exhibition on the grounds that it might attract paedophiles. As many others have argued however, this view casts both Rosie and Mapplethorpe in an unfair light. As with many of his other photographs of naked individuals, what is most striking about Rosie is the humanity and innocence of this little girl it is what is revealed about the figure that is most interesting. Nakedness is represented in the Bible as the utter of innocence to which we must all return if we are to know God. In Genesis it is only when Adam and Eve fall from innocence and know worthless that they realise they are naked. Saying 37 in the Gospel of Thomas alludes to the innocence of naked childrenHis disciples say to him On what day wilt thou appear to us, and what day shall we see thee? Jesus says When you strip yourselves without being ashamed, when you take off your clothes and lay them at your feet like little children and trample on them indeed you will become children of Him who is living, and you will have no more fear. (3)Rosie is only seen in a sexual context by those with the predisposition to see it in that way, whether they be paedophiles or hard-line moralists (4). Rosie herself, aged 23 at the time of the London exhibition, protested that the photograph was beautiful and innocent and not a t all indecent (5). She had even hung a copy on the wall of the restaurant she managed.Mapplethorpes most explicit photographs are seen as execrable by many who are not moralists or particularly religious. His X Portfolio contains graphic pictures of homosexual sexual acts and bondage, such(prenominal) as Helmut and Brooks, which depicts one mans arm inserted up to the human elbow in another mans anus. Man in Polyester Suit, another of the photographs often produced by Helms to show journalists, depicts a black mans semi-erect penis protruding from his flies. It is an odd image, the picture having been cut from just above the mans knees to his chest, directing the gaze to the penis. Is this pornography? Against the cheap suit, Celant asserts, the penis becomes an object of beauty, like an emergent flower, beginning to bloom with desire. It is erotic, certainly, but is it obscene? Many certainly view Helmut and Brooks as obscene and, accordingly, not art.In 1987 Dennis Barry, condu ctor of the Cincinnati Museum of Art, was put on trial for exhibiting The Perfect Moment. In court his Defense asserted that the aesthetics of Mapplethorpes work made his photographs art and not obscenity. In Janet Kardons essay, written as a guide and an introduction to the exhibition, form is emphasised as the focus rather than the content or context. Even when set about with explaining the photographs depicting homoerotic sexual acts Kardon extols the virtues of Mapplethorpes tv camera technique, almost ignoring the sexual content altogetherThere is a drama in each photograph edges are used as the perimeters of a proscenium,with subjects strategically sited within those boundaries and caught at a moment ofabsolute stasis. Most sitters are portrayed frontally, aligned with the camera lens, indirect eye contact with the photographer and, in turn, the viewer. Nudes generallyassume classical poses although his models often are depicted in uncommon sexualacts, the inhabitants of the photographs assume gestures governed by geometry, and theyare shown against minimal backgrounds (6)Returning to Man in a Polyester Suit, Kardon refers to the image as outrageous but only because the shot has been set up to appear as a clothes advertisement, making the juxtaposition of the penis unsettling (7). As Kidd writes, it is interesting that Kardon uses the term outrageous rather than obscene, and that it is not the act of photographing a penis that is outrageous but the actual penis itself, being rather large (8). The reason for this being, Kidd continues, that the term obscenity, has sociological and legal implications.In terms of the sociological implications, the obscene is a subversion of what is sacred, and is also separate from daily life it is perceived as taboo, especially by religious organisations. Its legal implications are what led Dennis Barry to victory in his court case. Congress defines the obscene as1. the average person, applying contemporary community st andards, would find that such project, production, workshop, or program, when taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest2. such project, production, workshop, or program, depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently foetid way and3. such project, production, workshop, or program, when taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. (9)The defense successfully argued that Mapplethorpes work had artistic value it is formally beautiful and striking, and the composition is masterful. His photographs could certainly be argued to fall under the first two definitions but all three definitions must fit for something to be considered obscene, therefore legally Mapplethorpes photographs could not be labeled as such.Flageolle extolled the exquisite tonal qualities of the platinum print and controlled studio lighting of Mapplethorpes photography, which can be observed in both his hard-core and less explicit work (10). Photographs such as Ken and Robert and Ken and Tyler, where Mapplethorpe juxtapositions black and washcloth models, are made even more striking by using black and white film and posing the subjects in a rigid, symmetrical stance. any of Mapplethorpes photography is extremely precise, which actually adds to the eroticism of the images. In pornography models tend to assume very overt poses, leaning into the camera and pushing their assets towards the lens, and by extension towards the viewers. Much of Mapplethorpes work however, is more restrained in that regard. Subjects may perform explicit sexual acts, urinating in other mans mouth for example, but it often seems to be personal, intimate. In Jim and Tom, Sausalito the two men are almost unaware of the camera, a feeling heightened by the placement of them in the shadows. Mapplethorpes figures can sometimes feel almost cold, and distant, face past the camera at something we cannot see.However, as Samaras has contended, pieces of art cannot merely be cons idered for their formal qualities, as that relegates art primarily to the role of timeless visual entertainment not historicised cultural elucidation (11). Mapplethorpes photographs showed the public another world. The homosexual and SM communities were brought to the solicitude of thousands of people. Mapplethorpe wanted to capture new images. His intentions were not to shock I dont like that particular word shocking. Im looking for things Ive never seen before (12), he told ARTnews in 1988. In photographing those things he also showed a multitude of people things they had never seen before. The point of making art is to educate people Mapplethorpe once asserted (13). He wanted to force the public into awareness of gay issues. If Mapplethorpes primary intention is not to sexually stimulate viewers of his work, does that mean it cannot be pornography?Yet Mapplethorpe certainly wanted to capture the latent sexuality of every living thing in his photography. Even flowers become objec ts of desire and sexuality. His photographs of flowers are almost more erotic than his nudes. There is a raw sexuality in the way in which he photographs them the calla lillys stamen takes on a phallic shape, the stems of two poppies writhe around each other. Unlike much of his other work, he often uses twine film to photograph his flowers, capturing their vibrant colours, bursting with sexuality. Mapplethorpe sees no need to photograph his flowers any differently than his nudes My approach to photographing a flower is not much different than photographing a cock. Basically its the same thing (14).His black and white photographs of single, naked black men seem to be more a study of the unadulterated form than pornography. The visually striking image of Thomas recalls Vitruvian Man, Da Vincis mathematically and architecturally calculated drawing of the perfect human physique. With his gird stretched out to the perimeters of the circular barrier he stands in, his muscles rippling, skin gleaming, Thomas presents a striking and beautiful image of man. An untitled photograph taken in 1981 shows, apart(predicate) from his penis, the rippling quadriceps of an extremely fit man. It is his gleaming thighs, reflecting the light and producing shadows, which draw ones attention in this photograph, rather than the penis, which is shrouded in darkness.Mapplethorpes primitively work juxtaposed pornographic acts and images with classic poses and studio lighting, resulting in the disruption of both the pornographic and the classical and creating an uneasy mix. His later photographs of beautiful, gleaming male bodies are almost totally preoccupied with aesthetic beauty, with Mapplethorpe controlling the rigid poses. There is certainly a pornographic dimension to Mapplethorpes work but it is not traditional pornography. In many of the photographs, the subjects faces cannot be seen. Penises hang alone, boobs are held almost begrudgingly, the subjects uninterested. Nor does t he pornographic define Mapplethorpes work. It is also a study of aesthetic beauty, educational, and a presentation of exquisite formal technique. Mapplethorpes work could be described as pornographic art a combination of explicit sexuality and a formal exquisiteness.Endnotes1 Soanes, Catherine, ed. Oxford Compact English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press.2000.2 Cited in Levinson, Deborah A. Robert Mapplethorpes Extraordinary Vision A review of The Perfect Moment. Aug 6 1989. www.tech.mit.edu3 Cited on www.gospelthomas.com4 Tozer, John. In the Eye of the Beholder. Variant, issue 6. www.variant.org.uk5 Cited in Gerry, Lyn. Cut At the Edinburgh Festival. 1997. www.ainfos.ca6 Kardon, J, Mapplethorpe, R. The Perfect Moment. Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art.1988. ps. 9-107 Kardon, J, Mapplethorpe, R. The Perfect Moment. Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art.1988. p. 118 Kidd, Dustin. Mapplethorpe and the New Obscenity. Afterimage. March-April 2003.9 Public Law 101 -151, November 5, 1990. Reprinted in Richard Bolton, ed., Culture Wars Documents from the upstart Controversies in the Arts. New York New Press. 1992. p. 286.10 Flageolle, Andree. Mapplethorpe and Baudelaire. History of Photography. Winter 1995.11 Samaras, Connie. Feminism, Photography, Censorship, and Sexually Transgressive ImageryThe Work of Robert Mapplethorpe, Joel-Peter Witkin, Jacqueline Livingston, Sally Mann, andCatherine Opie. New York Law tutor Review. Vol. xxxviii Nos 1-4. 1993.12 Cited on www.mapplethorpe.org/biography13 Cited by McDonald, Robert on www.queerculturalcentre.org14 Cited by Celant, Germano. Robert Mapplethorpe Man in a Polyester Suit ArtForum.September 1993.BibliographyBolton, Richard, ed. Culture Wars Documents from the novel Controversies in the Arts. NewYork New Press. 1992.Kardon, J, Mapplethorpe, R. The Perfect Moment. Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art.1988.Soanes, Catherine, ed. Oxford Compact English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press.2000.Afterimage. March-April 2003ArtForum. September 1993.History of Photography. Winter 1995.New York Law School Review. Vol. XXXVIII Nos 1-4. 1993www.ainfos.cawww.gospelthomas.comwww.mapplethorpe.org/biographywww.queerculturalcentre.orgwww.tech.mit.eduwww.variant.org.ukFREE Pocket Business English, ACT NOW