Flowers in a Vase photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe, 1985, dye transfer, 2ft x 20in (61 x 51cm). It is part of Alison Jacques’ exhibition.
Image courtesy: The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, New York, and Alison Jacques, London. Copyright: Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.
Alison Jacques’ exhibition on the controversial photographer runs until January 20 at the St James’s London gallery and reflects his enthusiasm for antiques as well as his more provocative side.
Notorious for the erotic and explicit images that both celebrated and exploited the human form, Mapplethorpe (1946-89) spent the majority of his career depicting lively bodies in black and white.
But this exhibition, Subject Object Image, draws out another side of the artist. The Sluggard, 1988, for example, is among the clutch of lesser-known works on offer, one of a series of several black-and-white images of objects completed towards the end of his life.
Also featured in this set are images of Italian glass, antique silver and classical statuary. Several of the objects pictured are from the collection Mapplethorpe built up with his long-term partner Sam Wagstaff while the two lived in New York during the 1970s-80s.
The Sluggard is not perhaps a such a surprising subject for the photographer - there is the familiar interest in the male form. However, based on an 1885 sculpture by Frederick Lord Leighton, the age of the figure at least is unusual for fans of Mapplethorpe’s more high-profile images.
Those same admirers will find the 1985 picture Flowers in a Vase even less familiar. This is one of a only a small group of colour pictures Mapplethorpe produced, and is one of a selection of dye-transfer colour still-lifes in the show, all depicting flowers.
The Sluggard, 1988, silver gelatin, 2ft x 20in (61 x 51cm), edition 10/10. It is one of the Robert Mapplethorpe photographs featured at Alison Jacques’ exhibition.
Image courtesy: The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, New York, and Alison Jacques, London. Copyright: Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.
Born in Florida to a strict Catholic family, Mapplethorpe moved to New York at age 16. He started producing images that celebrated nudity, sex and bondage and his exhibitions sparked debate over decency, the proper use of public funding in the US and freedom of speech.
He exhibited frequently in the US and Europe before dying young of AIDS-related complications. The year before his death he established the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation to protect his work and promote photography in general as well as to support HIV/AIDS medical research. Alison Jacques has worked with the foundation for 24 years.
Big Apple artists
Another major part of this exhibition comprises portraits showing artists from New York of the 1970s-80s such as Willem de Kooning, Richard Gere and Andy Warhol.
Prices range from $10,000-150,000.
