ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE: THE PERFECT MOMENT
Everything Mapplethorpe did–the exhaustive nude series, the celebrity portraits, even the flowers and still lifes–was informed by this early work. His work is concerned not so much with sexuality–in fact it is curiously devoid of eroticism in spite of its explicit nature–as with power and beauty in even the most unexpected subjects.
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The second row in the same glass case is devoted to flowers, and the third shows images from Mapplethorpe’s series on black men. By displaying three of his most important bodies of work together, the MCA suggests it understands the link between them. Yet by giving Mapplethorpe’s more recent, more commercial work prominence, the MCA seems to want to shift the focus away from Mapplethorpe’s past.
But the man pictured pulling the handle of a riding whip from his anus in a 1978 self-portrait is the same man who took the painfully beautiful color pictures of flowers that appeal to corporations and prestigious collectors. That is Mapplethorpe’s basic genius.
Drama, after all, is what Mapplethorpe is about. One of the last pictures taken before his death from AIDS last week was a decaying skull. There is nothing sentimental or even metaphorical about this image; like the S and M pictures, it is astonishingly literal.
Mapplethorpe’s self-portraits show an obsessive perfectionist, as well as a person in tune with his own urgency. In a 1982 portrait, we see him in a leather jacket, submachine gun in his hand, standing in front of a five-pointed star–a portrait that was seen by many critics as fascist. In 1986 we see the first public signs of Mapplethorpe’s illness, as he stares into the camera with a puzzled, hard look. His hair is thinning and his features are fragile, but he stands proud in his tuxedo. The most recent, and most eerie, public portrait shows a frail head popping out of blackness, a hand clutching a cane that has a skull for its handle. Mapplethorpe’s eyes tell of his fears and his reluctant and inevitable surrender. As always, Mapplethorpe holds himself up for all to see. He cares little about what we think, so long as we question traditional standards.
Some of the images of Lyon place her in typical male-fantasy poses. But she has a refined body, solid from years of muscle building and determination, and even her most passive poses lack the surrender usually identified with nude female figures. Sexuality does not play a role in these images.
