The Fabulous Work and Life of Robert Mapplethorpe

The first Monday of November 1946, Joan Mapplethorpe welcomed a child. Robert Michael would be her third, though she and her husband Harry would go on to have a total of six. Growing up in Floral Park, Long Island, Robert was nonchalent and curious as an adolescent. Even though rather bashful--but kind--the young boy contained a "stirring and the desire to stir". Mapplethorpe spent these years as he often would in the future: being an artist. He colored and he drew and he created, although not in a common or traditional way. The skies may be neon green, the sketches were scattered, and the jewelry he produced was rather "girly".

It was the late summer of 1967 and soon to be a very important memory in Robert's life. In this year, Robert, 21, and Patti Smith, also 21, would meet and become fast lovers, friends, and roommates. The two--both artists in their own form--would find each other at Smith's area of employment: a bookstore. It was not the first time they had seen one another, and would absolutely not be the last. Smith and Mapplethorpe would go on to make great art together, including the very popular album cover for Patti's first record, Horses, which Robert photographed. It was to Patti Smith that Robert first admitted his sexuality.

Begining with a cheap Polaroid Camera, Robert had advanced to a Hasselblad by the mid-70's for his pictures. These photographs often displayed friends and strangers (Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, Grace Jones), but mostly Patti Smith herself and self-portraits. For Robert Mapplethorpe, it was the early 1980's that a career of controversy and greatness really began, as he started photographing nude females and males, still-lifes of colorful flowers, and highly sexual and raunchy S&M pictures--a soon to be commonly present theme. During this time, Robert had found a studio at 24 Bond Street in Manhattan. He also became friendly with a certain Sam Wagstaff--a boyfriend and a mentor. It was Wagstaff who would remain by Robert's side until his death.

Posthumously, Mapplethorpe's X series gained worldwide attention when it was included in a traveling gallery by National Endowment for the Arts, The Perfect Moment. Such pictures were graphically explicit and even involved a self-porait with a whip in his anus. Black Book, a lookbook of black men in sexual manner photographed by Robert, also recieved huge critisim.

Still young enough to learn, but old enough to look back, Robert Mapplethorpe, aged forty-two, passed slowly in the early morning of March 9, 1989 due to complications from AIDS. He had already completed much in those years, but he was not finished. The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, which Mapplethorpe had founded just merely a year before dying in a Boston Hospital, has gone on to raise millions for AIDS and HIV research.

"I open doors, I close doors. I love no one, I love everyone. I love sex, I hate sex. Life is a lie, life is the truth. I stand naked, God holds my hand and we sing together." - Robert Mapplethorpe

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