Grace Jones, 1984. Photography by Robert Mapplethorpe, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, 1998 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission
In the three decades after Robert Mapplethorpe’s death in 1989, artists and critics have grappled with the artist’s complex legacy, questioning the objectification of his sitters. In the second instalment of Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now, curators Lauren Hinkson, Susan Thompson, and Levi Prombaum explore the dialectic between subversion, transgression, and exploitation that has made Mapplethorpe a lightning rod for controversy – then and now.
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Lauded and vilified for his depictions of homoerotic desire, the black male nude and the female figure, Mapplethorpe brought underrepresented communities to the forefront of the art world during the height of the Aids crisis, which eventually claimed his life. His formally rigorous approach to image-making helped elevate photography to the pantheon of fine art, while his choice of subject matter fuels the culture wars that raged in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
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Where the first part of Implicit Tensions focused on Mapplethorpe alone, the new installment examines the artist’s legacy in a dialogue with six artists who use portraiture to examine our ideas about identity, visibility, and representation. The curators selected works by African, African-American, and white American LGBTQ artists including Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Lyle Ashton Harris, Glenn Ligon, Zanele Muholi, Catherine Opie, and Paul Mpagi Sepuya that offer expansive approaches to the agency of the subjects in their work.
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Siphe, Johannesburg (from Somnyama Ngonyama), 2018. Photography by Zanele Muholi, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, Wendy Fisher, 2019 © Zanele Muholi, courtesy Stevenson, Cape Town/Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson, New York
Self Portrait, 1980. Photography by Robert Mapplethorpe, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, 96.4355 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.