Polaroids: Mapplethorpe at Modern Art Oxford on artrepublic.com
Exhibition running from Jul 04 2009
until Sep 13 2009
Polaroids: Mapplethorpe presents the early instant photography of Robert Mapplethorpe (b.1946, d.1989). The exhibition of 92 Polaroids, selected from a body of over 1500, offers a compelling insight into the celebrated and controversial photographer’s formative years and the development of his artistic identity. In the early 1970s, Mapplethorpe lived in New York’s legendary Chelsea Hotel with then lover, later friend, the rock singer Patti Smith. There, filmmaker Sandy Daley lent Mapplethorpe her Polaroid camera, marking the beginning of his experiments with photography. Drawn to the process for its immediacy, Mapplethorpe commented that instant photography “was the perfect medium, or so it seemed, for the 70s and 80s, when everything was fast. If I were to make something that took two weeks to do, I’d lose my enthusiasm. It would become an act of labour and the love would be gone”. Intimate through their smallness of scale, the spontaneity of these early photographs contrasts starkly with his highly stylised images for which he later became famous. Signature elements of Mapplethorpe’s later work are visible in these early nudes, flower studies and still lifes, and his portraits of lovers and friends including Helen Marden, Sam Wagstaff, Marianne Faithfull, and Patti Smith. Poignantly simple, at times explicitly sexual, they range in tone from tender to provocative. This exhibition was organised by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, New York.Polaroids: Mapplethorpe is curated by Sylvia Wolf. Open Tue – Sat: 10.00 – 17.00, Sun: 12.00 – 17.00. Image Credits Robert Mapplethorpe, Untitled (Patti Smith), 1973/75. Monochromatic dye diffusion transfer print (Polaroid), 5 1/8 x 4 1/8 in. (13 x 10.5 cm). Collection of Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by Permission. Robert Mapplethorpe, Untitled, 1970/73. Monochromatic dye diffusion transfer print (Polaroid), 4 1/4 x 3 1/4 in. (10.8 x 8.3 cm). Collection of Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by Permission. Robert Mapplethorpe, Untitled, 1973. Monochromatic dye diffusion transfer print (Polaroid), 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 in. (8.3 x 10.8 cm). Collection of Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation © Permission.  |
