Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures

Robert Mapplethorpe,

a known homosexual who died of AIDS

and who spent the last years of his life promoting homosexuality.

Now, if any senator doesn't know what I'm talking about

in terms of the art that I have protested,

look at the pictures!

Now, any senator who thinks

that I'm attacking aesthetic art...

I don't know whether the television cameras can see it or not,

I'm gonna be fast enough with it that they can't.

But I want senators to come over here, if they have any doubt,

and look at the pictures.

In Cincinnati, police closed down the Mapplethorpe exhibit.

We are sending the Mapplethorpe exhibit to trial.

Come over here. Look at the pictures.

One of two artists whose works led to a dispute...

Look at the pictures. Look at the pictures.

Look at the pictures.

Who is Mapplethorpe?

The art gallery and its director

are charged with obscenity for exhibiting photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe.

Look at the pictures.

Mapplethorpe's work is highly controversial.

Can I show it to you? I don't want to look at it.

I don't even acknowledge that it's art.

Keep your hands off!

I don't even acknowledge

that the fellow who did it was an artist.

I think he was a jerk...

jerk, jerk.

This is one of five vaults

in which Mapplethorpe's archive resides.

Audiovisual material is in here

along with more ephemeral paperwork from his studio and personal correspondence.

Photographs are in a cooler environment,

and Polaroids are in an even colder environment.

One of our big challenges is to really make a case

for why we're doing two concurrent exhibitions...

Right. About one artist.

This is two sides of one coin.

Yeah.

There is a duality that runs through Mapplethorpe's work and life

and we hope to be able to divide the material

in a way that would highlight that duality.

This is a box of self-portraits. Right.

Oh. Oh.

Yeah, biker jacket from the back.

Yeah.

I really like this white piping

and how it leads up to this other shape. Yeah.

That's one of the great ones.

When you say Mapplethorpe, people immediately think

of the controversies that happened during the '90s.

"Guerrilla Rebel."

Yeah.

Mapplethorpe was being demonized

by conservative politicians,

so one of our goals was to humanize Mapplethorpe,

to bring him back into people's consciousness as a human being.

It's quite convincing.

Ah. Oh.

Mapplethorpe and bullwhip.

I remember it being a slightly higher contrast.

It's a different paper. Right.

This is a lot warmer and softer.

Mm-hmm.

The way his hand is,

it's so great, it almost looks like he's releasing a shadow.

Yes. Because that cord comes just to the edge of the frame.

The cord kind of connects the viewer with Mapplethorpe.

Yeah.

Because it's coming out of the picture.

As well as the eye contact.

Right. Obviously,

it's very defiant.

He's not hiding his face. He's not hiding his identity.

He's not hiding what he's doing.

Robert was just... my younger brother.

I'm the oldest.

That's myself, my brother Richard,

Robert, Edward, Sue, and James.

That's the six of us.

When we were young, we did a lot of coloring.

Robert always had weird things.

He'd have a green face,

or... just not the norm.

Purple hair, or something.

And I'd say, "Why are you doing that for?

"That's not the way it's supposed to be."

As far as, like, photographs,

he never took photographs.

My dad took a lot of photographs.

Robert, he had no interest in that at all.

My wife and I and the children moved here in 1949.

I was always interested in photography,

but none of my kids were until Eddie.

I had all the equipment downstairs, a darkroom,

enlarger and printer and dryer and everything else.

This is the block we lived on.

See, all the houses were the same?

This is during the snow.

This is Robert here with two of his friends.

You know, we had to be home a certain time for dinner,

and you had to sit at the table until you finished your dinner.

Robert was this regular kid.

One thing was, his endurance on a pogo stick.

He was having competitions with people.

He would go all the way around the block on a pogo stick.

Robert was the pogo stick champ of 259th Street, of the neighborhood.

He just could go on forever, and he was so proud of that.

You know, there's something about black and white pictures that are so much better

because they last.

I took this of Robert in front of our house, right?

The rest of them, all these, he took of me,

and, I believe, is probably the first pictures he took.

"Sense and Nonsense!"

There was this television program in the early '50s.

Someone would give them something to taste with their blindfolds on

and you would have to guess what it is.

That's how we play the game, identifying items by means of our five senses.

Well, we Mapplethorpe kids made our own

"Sense and Nonsense" game.

Robert, little devil that he was,

went to one of the many ashtrays around the house,

which were always full,

and put ashes in my brother's mouth,

and they were fuming.

That's the kind of stuff he did, that kind of needling stuff.

So he was a devilish guy.

We never missed Mass on Sunday.

We always went to church.

And I still do.

I first met Robert Mapplethorpe

when I was assigned to Our Lady of the Snows Parish in Floral Park.

They were active in the parish, you know,

so I got to know the whole family.

So Robert just kind of took to me,

and I, you know, took to him.

And... he used to paint me pictures.

He drew me a couple of paintings of the Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary,

and I thought to myself, "He's been too influenced by Picasso."

You know?

But anyway, I have to say that, first,

he was the only person I knew

who could sit on a couch and chew his toenails.

The other thing was, you'd look at Robert

and I think the first thing you'd notice is his eyes.

They were huge,

and as if he was always looking,

always penetrating, always...

you know, trying to get through.

I come from this, you know, suburban America.

It was a very safe environment,

and it was a good place to come from

in that it was a good place to leave.

He never quite really fit in

with all these other teenage boys, you know?

There was something very fragile about Robert.

Robert was mom's favorite. I don't know why though.

I can't put my finger on specific things,

but I always say, "Oh, Robert was her favorite."

Somehow that just wasn't enough for me.

Robert was smart. Everything came easy to him.

I worked like a dog for my marks,

but he graduated at 16.

As soon as I could, I started art school training,

and I moved to Brooklyn.

My dad was basically against it.

My father thought, you can do it as a hobby,

but what are you ever gonna do with art?

Did you know that photography

and homosexuality share something in common?

Growing respect for photography in the art world

occurred simultaneously

with the growing visibility of the gay rights movement.

Each suffered a gauntlet of prejudice during their coming of age.

Just as Mapplethorpe was starting out,

to be openly gay was still very much a cultural taboo.

And photography was considered not much more than a utilitarian medium,

an applied art, a bastard of the arts.

He was very young when he started Pratt.

He just looked like a little boy and people made fun of him.

At that time his name was Bob Mapplethorpe,

and to further diminish him,

they called him "Maypo,"

because that was a children's cereal back in those days.

He was not macho.

It makes you strong.

He told me he would take his father's negatives to class

and present them as his own work.

He was a fuckup.

So I was interested in his experience at Pratt

and how he found himself as an artist there.

Is that a self-portrait?

Yes. This one's actually ink,

so I'm imagining he, like, rolled an oil-based ink onto his face.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is kind of hard to comprehend.

The psychedelia of it too.

He was really into acid at the time.