Robert Mapplethorpe's Many Subjects Take Centre Stage In New Exhibition

‘He wasn’t afraid to say what he wanted to say through the lens of the camera. And he didn’t care if it shocked people,’ curator Alison Jacques tells me of the American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The controversial artist known for his sexually explicit portraiture of New York City’s leather and BDSM scene through the 80s, is the subject of Jacques’ latest exhibition, which opened to the public last night. While his phallic still lifes aren’t relegated to the shadows, Jacques's curation aimed to present a wider breadth of the artist's subject matter, from his famous flowers to his network of celebrity friends.

Titled ‘Robert Mapplethorpe: Subject Object Image,’ the exhibition presents works across two decades of Mapplethorpe’s career. Having worked closely with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation over the last 24 years, Jacques's first large-scale curation of the artist's work begins in 1976 until the final year of his life — Mapplethorpe died in 1989 at the age of 42 due to complications from AIDS — and presents varied subject matter from his most recognisable portraits to rarely seen images of one of his many male muses, Ken Moody.

‘Hopefully, when people see the different genres he worked in, they will understand that, ultimately, Robert’s message is to find beauty in everything’. For Jacques, the show was an opportunity to present Mapplethorpe’s oeuvre beyond the controversial subject matter that made him infamous. Rather, the show sets out to explore Mapplethorpe’s work through what Jacques dubs, ‘the perfect moment’, after the name of the photographer’s New York retrospective that opened months before his death. For Jacques, the term is the defining moment captured by Mapplethorpe that links his varied compositions.

She explains, ‘At the end of the day he saw everything he photographed as a kind of sculpture. Regardless of who or what it was.’ Upon entering the space, visitors are met with one of Mapplethorpe’s earliest works in the exhibit; a sculpture of a framed mirror covered in metal grate. The inclusion emphasises Jacques’ hypothesis, linking the works together beyond the themes of sexuality, race, and gender that so often define Mapplethope’s photographs.

The second room presents a collage of Mapplethoropes’ network of friends and collaborators. Like a wall of familial photographers the likes of Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, David Hockney, Isamu Noguchi and more hang side by side. While a visually compelling representation of the worlds that the artist crossed into, the who’s who of portraits felt disjointed sandwiched between the first and final room. The emphasis on celebrity without a compelling context of its inclusion felt more rooted in spectacle than a valid look at the artists’ process.

While much of the exhibition is made up of Mapplethorpe’s signature black and white gelatin photographs, the downstairs features blown-up polaroids of Ken Moody alongside vibrant floral still lifes. A fitting pairing as Jacques explains, ‘his flowers are very erotic and filled with sexual innuendo’. Capturing virility in both flora and the human physique, the coloured compositions highlight what makes Mapplethorpe’s work truly great; his formalist approach to light and shadow.

Specifically, the rarely displayed polaroids which offer a nuanced and multi-dimensional view of Mapplethorpe's artistic evolution and his unyielding commitment to challenging conventions through his lens. This is accented with the 1988 BBC documentary, Arena, which plays in the room adjacent. With first-hand accounts from the artist along with contemporaries like Louise Bourgeoise, it’s a crash course in understanding what made Mapplethorpe so captivating.

‘He was showing things that people deemed absolutely unacceptable’, Jacques tells me. ‘He’s a trailblazer who paved the way for so many artists to do what they do now’. In 1990, just after his death, the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Centre was sued for obscenity after exhibiting Mapplethorpe’s work. An acquittal of the work reaffirmed the First Amendment freedom of speech, paving the way for homosexual art to be displayed freely from the pressure of censorship.

The exhibition serves as a testament to Mapplethorpe's enduring influence on contemporary photography and art. His technical precision, uncompromising vision, and ability to evoke raw emotions through his imagery continue to inspire artists and audiences alike, transcending time and societal constraints.‘The power of his work continues today and remains challenging. It challenges our understanding of what is beautiful,’ Jacques says.

Robert Mapplethorpe: Subject Object Image is on now until 20 January at Alison Jacques Gallery.