Mapplethorpe was formed at the Pratt Institute, in a cultural scene led by artistic currents such as body art, minimal or conceptual art, which made use of photography detached from its formal or aesthetic facet. At the same time, it is an era characterized by a strong return of painting in which the use of the photographic medium is notably reduced.
When Mapplethorpe began to use his Polaroid and to evolve from collage to pure photography, the genres "art" and "industry" were separated under the categories "high" and "low" culture, linking the photographic technique to merely commercial purposes and dependent on the industry.
His development as a photographer coincides with a general rise of kitsch culture within the cultural industry, understood as "the continuous exhibition of objects and attitudes proposed as luxurious and sophisticated and, at the same time, as absolutely attainable for all". It is about kitsch understood not as a photographic genre in itself, but as a philosophy of rapport with the world that had a strong impact on the artists of this generation.
In this context, and in the face of the dominant tendency in artistic currents to reduce photography to its conceptual dimension, Mapplethorpe rescues the formal elaboration that photography allows and incorporates it into its conceptual facet.
Raw and direct images of sadomasochism combined with the most meticulous compositional direction, pure pornography and the most exact pictorial classicism, a simple flower with the most exaggerated sensuality and eroticism. Mapplethorpe's poetics posed a total fusion between art and life, in which he often placed his own reality at the center.
This exhibition delves into Mapplethorpe's special sensitivity towards the object, which he showed from his very beginning as an artist, when his work could be considered a new given style. He claimed to consider flowers, for example, as subjects, rather than as pretexts for the formal exhibition. Elements whose mysterious and dark aspect humanized them until endowing them with an unpredictable erotic claim.
In this exhibition we can appreciate his capacity to endow with artistic dignity, equally, the portrait of a doorknob, the leg of a chest of drawers or a male sexual organ. Mapplethorpe maintained this methodology throughout his career, incorporating his life into his practice, and did not even stop it in the face of the imminent and tragic consciousness of death.
The result is a hybrid unprecedented in the history of art, a unique mixture that allows us to understand the scandal that provoked and still provokes his work.
In spite of his short life, Mapplethorpe left a vast legacy still to be explored, open to countless rediscoveries, which today survives as radically contemporary. This exhibition enhances the artist's intimate relationship with objects, flowers and everyday scenes, opening the way to investigate his work under a perspective unpublished in Spain.
In April 2018, the film Mapplethorpe (2018), directed by Ondi Timoner, premiered at the Tribeca Festival in New York. Also, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the artist's death, several exhibitions have been held around the world, such as the individual exhibition at Galleria Fanco Noero in Turin; Robert Mapplethorpe, Coreografía per una mostra, at the Museo Madre - Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina, Naples; or Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. The exhibition at the Elvira González gallery joins this commemoration and is also part of the OFF Festival of PHotoEspaña.
When Mapplethorpe began to use his Polaroid and to evolve from collage to pure photography, the genres "art" and "industry" were separated under the categories "high" and "low" culture, linking the photographic technique to merely commercial purposes and dependent on the industry.
His development as a photographer coincides with a general rise of kitsch culture within the cultural industry, understood as "the continuous exhibition of objects and attitudes proposed as luxurious and sophisticated and, at the same time, as absolutely attainable for all". It is about kitsch understood not as a photographic genre in itself, but as a philosophy of rapport with the world that had a strong impact on the artists of this generation.
In this context, and in the face of the dominant tendency in artistic currents to reduce photography to its conceptual dimension, Mapplethorpe rescues the formal elaboration that photography allows and incorporates it into its conceptual facet.
Raw and direct images of sadomasochism combined with the most meticulous compositional direction, pure pornography and the most exact pictorial classicism, a simple flower with the most exaggerated sensuality and eroticism. Mapplethorpe's poetics posed a total fusion between art and life, in which he often placed his own reality at the center.
This exhibition delves into Mapplethorpe's special sensitivity towards the object, which he showed from his very beginning as an artist, when his work could be considered a new given style. He claimed to consider flowers, for example, as subjects, rather than as pretexts for the formal exhibition. Elements whose mysterious and dark aspect humanized them until endowing them with an unpredictable erotic claim.
In this exhibition we can appreciate his capacity to endow with artistic dignity, equally, the portrait of a doorknob, the leg of a chest of drawers or a male sexual organ. Mapplethorpe maintained this methodology throughout his career, incorporating his life into his practice, and did not even stop it in the face of the imminent and tragic consciousness of death.
The result is a hybrid unprecedented in the history of art, a unique mixture that allows us to understand the scandal that provoked and still provokes his work.
In spite of his short life, Mapplethorpe left a vast legacy still to be explored, open to countless rediscoveries, which today survives as radically contemporary. This exhibition enhances the artist's intimate relationship with objects, flowers and everyday scenes, opening the way to investigate his work under a perspective unpublished in Spain.
In April 2018, the film Mapplethorpe (2018), directed by Ondi Timoner, premiered at the Tribeca Festival in New York. Also, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the artist's death, several exhibitions have been held around the world, such as the individual exhibition at Galleria Fanco Noero in Turin; Robert Mapplethorpe, Coreografía per una mostra, at the Museo Madre - Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina, Naples; or Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. The exhibition at the Elvira González gallery joins this commemoration and is also part of the OFF Festival of PHotoEspaña.
