Robert Mapplethorpe by Paul Martineau5/23/2023 ![]() ![]() It hands next to a nearly identical portrait of Sam Wagstaff, Mapplethorpe’s older, patrician lover. ![]() You feel the same in the early photographs, such as a Polaroid of himself from around 1974, his face half-obscured by a white wall, a leather cuff around his wrist. In the early works, such as a 1968 collage featuring two sweet nude boys, we see Mapplethorpe discovering his artistic and sexual individuality at the same time – and often using a surreal visual vocabulary to express that intertwined identity. They’re largely tasteless and would be forgettable but for what they entailed. Photograph: Robert Mapplethorpe FoundationĪ subsequent gallery is given over to rarely seen early work, from before he took up a camera: collages, jewelry designs, a few assemblages freighted with images of the Madonna and Catholic guilt. ![]()
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