A new film about the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe is a shocking and brilliant reminder of the devastation HIV and Aids wreaked – and still doesThere are many shocking images in the brilliant new documentary Robert Mapplethorpe: seek at the Pictures,made by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. You probably know many of them already. Some are just seared into our culture and no longer disturb anyone. The cover of Horses with Patti Smith was as much of a statement as her music. His celebrity pics of Eurotrash and wealthy collectors, or actual celebs such as Debbie Harry and Bianca whispering in Mick Jagger’s ear remain fascinating. Their beauty blasted by his light into timelessness; his naked flowers, or the sex organs of plants in all their glory. As he said himself,he could perfect a bowl of carnations just as well as “a fist up someone’s ass”. Then there was the documentation of his S&M activities and his fetishisation of the black body – so many of these images remain, to use the word du jour, and “problematic”. suited. His life was an artwork. He would pick up guys,do drugs, gain sex and then accumulate down to work. He would photograph them.
When you see these pictures, or you wonder why – with sexual imagery everywhere all the time – these pictures linger,hanging somewhere in a dark fragment of the collective memory. You support looking because he kept seeing.
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Source: theguardian.com