Robert Mapplethorpe
This paper will explore Rob
This is an excerpt from the paper...
This paper will explore Robert Mapplethorpe's works and his photography subjects, themes, concepts and influences. It will also touch on Mapplethorpe's personality and how it affected his work and on his relationship to the New York art scene. Mapplethorpe was a contemporary American photographer whose works continue to influence the genre. He traversed uncharted territory with the camera, if not exactly in his choice of subjects, then in the manner in which those subjects are dealt with and in the unusual emotional aura that encompasses the photographs, creating perplexing feelings in the person looking at them. It is the ability to produce these feelings, along with the excellent technicality of Mapplethorpe's works, that made him one of the better known photographers in the United States. Robert Mapplethorpe was born in 1946 and died March 9, 1989, of an AIDS related illness. In 1963, he attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and continued studying there until 1970. The Pratt Institute is a 100-year-old prestigious art school which awards perhaps a million dollars a year in scholarships to students from throughout the country. The school holds a nationwide talent search every year, aimed at seniors in high school who possess exceptional talent in the areas of architecture, art and design, and media arts (photography, film/video, animation and computer graphics). The winners are accepted to study at the school. Many students have gone on to become
. . .
rfacing of beauty, sometimes where it is least expected. Almost all of Mapplethorpe's photographs have sexual implications, some more blatant than others. The triangle seems to be the geometrical form of Mapplethorpe's choice and can be seen in most of his nude photographs. These two aspects of his art can be seen in almost all of his works.
As an example of sexuality, the photo "Larry Desmedt," taken in 1978, is a picture of a man's upper torso and face, his head thrown back in exquisite ecstacy. We could think that possibly he has just encountered some divine belief firsthand; that's how "pure" his pleasure seems to be. When we discover that this is a cropped version of the full photo and that the complete picture reveals the man in the throes of masturbation, Mapplethorpe's use of an assimilated dichotomy is again masterfully apparent. The beauty of a usually-frowned-upon act is revealed by the absence of the part for which we have so many negatively preconceived ideas and emotions. And, as the picture shows only the upper half of his body, the innuendoes are subtle.
"Bob and Larry Kissing," 1980, is in the opposite realm as far as subtlety, but it still carries that aesthetic warmness that is typical of Mapplethorpe
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon, Peacock Feathers, Larry Kissing, Robert Mapplethorpe's, Larry Desmedt, Pratt Institute, James Dean, Warhol Looking, Cartier-Bresson Nor, robert mapplethorpe, mapplethorpe people, lisa lyon, institute contemporary, andy warhol, robert mapplethorpe 1970-1983, mapplethorpe 1970-1983, patti smith, 15 october 1990, pratt institute, contemporary art, talent search, titled robert mapplethorpe, york art scene, robert mapplethorpe people,
Approximate Word count = 2255
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
