Trailer for the documentary Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures.
The only thing more controversial than the work of world-famous New York homoerotic photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) was his life. This is a portrait of an artist who elevated contemporary photography to fine art, unleashing a cultural conflict that continues to rage. The documentary’s title is derived from a call by an outraged homophobic U.S. senator named Jesse Helms, who went to court to get a Mapplethorpe exhibition closed down in 1989. We follow curators from the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as they prepare a parallel retrospective of Mapplethorpe’s work. Their observations on sexuality, portraits, self-portraits and floral still lives form the framework for a biography of the artist that includes interviews with members of Mapplethorpe’s family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, models, lovers, art critics and collectors. All of them are shot in color using a Hasselblad, the characteristic camera with which Mapplethorpe took his black-and-white photos. Thanks to old audio recordings, Mapplethorpe himself – who died of AIDS at 42 – frequently takes on the role of narrator.
1 min 23 sec
Views
338
Posted On
April 05, 2017
Fenton Bailey
Writer
Fenton Bailey
Studio
Independent
Release
April 22, 2016
Nancy Rooney
Harry Mapplethorpe
George Stack
Robert Mapplethorpe
Philip Gefter
No Music Available