Mapplethorpe
A Biography
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
With Robert Mapplethorpe's full endorsement and encouragement, Morrisroe interviewed more than three hundred friends, lovers, family members, and critics to form this definitive biography of America's most censored and celebrated photographer.
“Eventually I found several hundred people who knew Robert Mapplethorpe in all his various incarnations—Catholic schoolboy; ROTC cadet; hippie; sexual explorer; celebrated artist; and famous AIDS victim. Their stories helped animate his pictures and bring his visual diary to life. What I discovered wasn’t one “Perfect Moment” but a series of moments—some pure, some blemished, but all emblematic of the paradoxical times in which he lived.”—Patricia Morrisroe, from the Introduction
NOTE: This edition does not include photographs.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The late photographer-provocateur, who died from AIDS-related illness in 1989, chose Morrisroe, a frequent contributor to New York magazine, as his biographer. The result is a deeply sympathetic portrait of one of the most controversial artists of the 20th century. His work offsets with luminous elegance and compositional rigor its sometimes shocking content: not only absurdly lush blossoms and haughty socialites but also male nudes and explicit sadomasochistic scenes that reflected his own obsessive forays into the Manhattan underworld. The book explores his rise in the vital art world of 1970s Manhattan as well as his bond with rocker Patti Smith, whom Dali described as ``a Gothic crow''; his sometimes loving, sometimes mutually exploitative relationship with his lover and patron, Sam Wagstaff; and the moving coincidence of his greatest critical successes occurring with the insidious and slow depredations of his illness. Although one sometimes longs for the nuanced appreciation of his work that an art historian would have offered, Morrisroe admirably balances frankness with sympathy in this memorable book. Photos not seen by PW. BOMC and QPB selections.
