The Ecstasy and the Agony of Robert Mapplethorpe

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Self-Portrait, 1980

PHOTOGRAPHY obert Mapplethorpe remained focused on his legacy even from his hospital bed, writing his signature over and over again until it was reduced to a blur. In another example, he THE ECSTASY AND turned the “e” at the end of his name into an arrow, as if aiming at a target he could still envision but could no lon- THE AGONY OF ger reach. When he died, on March 9, 1989, from complications of RAIDS, he was only 42, but through his relentless drive and determination, he’d ensured the forward momentum of his remarkable career. ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE In March the Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Before his LACMA-Getty retrospective, the late artist’s Art will present a collaborative retrospective of the photographer’s work, biographer looks back on his avant-garde life. drawing on the art and archives acquired in 2011 from the Robert Map-

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“That looks confused.” He then went on jumped into the Hudson and swam to to explain that if I wanted to wear a New Jersey. Eventually, they split up— jacket with a high collar I had to wear my Mapplethorpe admitted that he feared hair up. When I pulled it up, he made a for his life—but even five years later, he face and told me to leave it down. Finally, could barely utter Moore’s name with- he said, “I think you should get rid of out tears coming to his eyes. the jacket.” Mapplethorpe died before the Corco- Mapplethorpe was a master at the art ran Gallery of Art canceled “The Perfect game, negotiating the boundaries of up- Moment,” an exhibition of his work that town and downtown with the ease of a would set the stage for a 1990 obscenity

Clockwise seasoned diplomat. He’d appear at Park trial in Cincinnati. (Both Cincinnati’s from top left: Avenue dinner parties in black leather Contemporary Arts Center and its direc- Mapplethorpe at his 1988 chaps before heading down to the Mine- tor were acquitted.) Mapplethorpe the Whitney show, photographed shaft, a gay sex club, where he was such provocateur would have relished the by Jonathan a regular people would ask, “Who was spectacle just as Mapplethorpe the ca- Becker for Vanity Fair; a rally in there besides Robert Mapplethorpe?” reerist would have loved to be here for Cincinnati in support of an While his S&M pictures made his the Getty-LACMA shows. His work has exhibition by the late artist, name, they were not made for decora- stood the test of time, even as he seems 1990; the cover tion. The flower photos were the big emblematic of his own time. It’s hard of Morrisroe’s Poppy, 1988 1995 biography; sellers; they were “respectable,” even to imagine him today, in the era of gay Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith, when exuding an air of imminent danger. As donated to the Kinsey Institute for Research in marriage—he probably would have criticized early 1970s. for the commissioned portraits, they allowed Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.) the concept as “too suburban”—but in his self- him to network and also provided a steady in- It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that portraits as a woman he was ahead of his day in come stream. But whether the subjects paid for Mapplethorpe’s love life was exceedingly com- focusing on transgender issues. A Mapplethorpe fear of being pigeonholed as a “gay photogra- the pictures or not, Mapplethorpe sculpted plicated. He was searching for a man he could portrait of Caitlyn Jenner would have been pher.” He felt comfortable around women, es- them in his own image: urban, edgy, cool, and put on a pedestal, one who’d happily stay there. something to see. pecially someone who shared his Catholic up- slightly dangerous, too. The great love of his life was Milton Moore, Before Mapplethorpe left for New England bringing. “Then you understand,” he said. The photographer had little to say about his the subject of one of his most famous photo- Deaconess Hospital, in Boston, we spoke for Though he was no longer religious, Catholic flower portraits, even less about his portraits. graphs, Man in Polyester Suit, which recently the last time. iconography infused his work, and his place- He was not a raconteur, except when it came sold for $478,000 at auction. Moore, who had “Just don’t make me out as boring,” he said. ment of objects, whether in his photographs or to sex. He considered himself an expert in the serious psychiatric issues, was AWOL from the There was no danger there. ♦ his loft, had an altar’s rigid symmetry. extremes of human behavior, and in his brief navy and had difficulty living up to Map- Mapplethorpe’s loft was on New York’s West life he probably gained more knowledge than plethorpe’s impossible expectations. Once he “Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium” 23rd Street, near the Chelsea Hotel, where, a most sex researchers. (Fittingly, 30 of Map- nearly burned down the photographer’s studio; runs March 15 through July 31 at the Getty; decade earlier, he’d lived with Smith. The place plethorpe’s most compelling sex photos were another time, feeling claustrophobic, he March 20 through July 31 at LACMA. see the full range of Mapplethorpe’s output, wasn’t decorated for comfort but served as from his 1970s collages, videos, and fetish jew- THE PHOTOGRAPHER a showroom for his various collections. Like elry to the photographs that sparked the “cul- HAD LITTLE TO his patron and former lover Sam Wagstaff, ture wars” of the 1990s. In April HBO will SAY ABOUT HIS FLOWER he was obsessed with accumulating things: present the documentary Mapplethorpe: Look at PORTRAITS, EVEN 19th-century busts of Roman gods and devils; LESS ABOUT HIS the Pictures, and Patti Smith, the photographer’s Scandinavian pottery and Italian glass; Arts and THEWhat to see, hear,SHORT and do around the world LIST this season friend and muse, is currently adapting her best- PORTRAITS. Crafts furniture. There was never an object out selling memoir Just Kids for Showtime. HE WAS NOT A of place, and everything—and everyone—did Mapplethorpe would have loved the atten- have a place. It was the way he’d always orga- tion. During the six months I interviewed him RACONTEUR, nized his life, and it became especially impor- THEATER ART FILM MUSIC BOOKS TV for Mapplethorpe: A Biography (Random EXCEPT tant as he began to lose control over it. David Harrower’s The Guggenheim Warner Bros. This year’s edition of In Curtis Sittenfeld’s If anything counts as House), he repeatedly expressed his desire to Each week seemed to add another year to his searing play BLACKBIRD, Museum Bilbao challenges Marvel’s the Coachella Valley ELIGIBLE (Random “appointment TV” in WHEN IT about a confrontation presents a LOUISE superhero hegemony Music and Arts Festival House)—a deft, modern the age of DVR, it’s the “live long enough to see the fame.” We’d met chronological age. Gazing at his once handsome between a middle-aged BOURGEOIS exhibition, with BATMAN V. provides two major retelling of Pride and back-to-back-to-back JUDY LINN (MAPPLETHORPE AND SMITH) JUDY five years earlier when I profiled him for Lon- CAME TO SEX. face was to see what he would have looked like © man and the young “Structures of Existence: SUPERMAN: DAWN OF inducements for those Prejudice written under season premieres of woman he abused The Cells,” devoted JUSTICE, combining DC not partial to flower the aegis of the Austen three of the best shows don’s Sunday Times Magazine. I remember at 60, 70, and finally, as an old man. Map- when she was a child, entirely to the late artist’s Comics’ two headliners. crowns and jean Project—the five Bennet on television: HBO’s thinking he’d make a great biographical subject, had a major show at the Whitney Museum, in plethorpe knew he’d lost his physical appeal. He comes to Broadway’s series of enclosed Trailers indicate the shorts to head to Indio, girls return home to GAME OF THRONES, especially after he confided that his life was even 1988, he was already in a wheelchair. was vain and very proud. He could also be Belasco Theatre, phantasmagorias, taking film isn’t as dumb as it California: the long- Cincinnati, with Messrs. SILICON VALLEY, and with Jeff Daniels and full advantage of Frank sounds, thanks in part awaited reunions of Bingley and Darcy as VEEP, whose biting more interesting than his photographs, but at In August of that year, I approached him charming, petty, and extremely critical. Noth- Michelle Williams as Gehry’s game-changing to Henry Cavill’s charm GUNS N’ ROSES and LCD doctors competing for political satire is 36 he was far too young for such a definitive about writing his biography. He agreed almost ing escaped his discerning eye. When I once the two broken souls. building. as the Man of Steel. SOUNDSYSTEM. their affections. especially needed now.

project. AIDS changed the arc of his life and in- immediately. Mapplethorpe later confessed that showed up in a new Romeo Gigli shawl-neck 3/10–6/11 3/18–9/4 3/25 4/15–24 4/19 4/24

evitably his story. By the time Mapplethorpe he didn’t want a gay man to write his story for jacket, it didn’t take him a few minutes to say, (RALLY); PHOTO AL BEHRMAN/AP MAPPLETHORPE FOUNDATION © THE ROBERT

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