Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/12/01

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Free Stuff Fridays: Only in Canada...Pity.
From: Johnny Deadman <john@pinkheadedbug.com>
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2000 23:08:52 -0500

on 1/12/00 9:44 pm, Robert Browne at rbrowne@iopener.net wrote:

> Jim Brick wrote:
> 
> I have seen this book in a bookstore. The subject matter is disgusting but
> Mapplethorpe certainly was a good photographic artist and technician. Too
> bad it was wasted on such demented and vulgar subject matter.
> 
> Jim,
> 
> I think you're being too kind to Mapplethorpe. After seeing the scope of his
> work over the years my opinion is that he was only a mediocre photographer and
> technician. What made him the darling of the art world was his more
> controversial subject matter. I made a similar comment to my wife when we were
> at an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art recently that included a
> couple of his photos. Another viewer standing nearby agreed. So I guess at
> least one other person shares my opinion.
> 
> Robert

I'd say... very good technician, very competent and talented but ultimately
mediocre photographer... despite or more probably because of a subject
matter that got him a huge amount of
publicity/notoriety/exposure/respect/kudos/whatever precisely because it
offended a lot of people. It didn't offend me (you have to try harder than
THAT -- check the movies next time you stay in a chain motel), but I do find
it pretty boring (like the movies). If you're going to make those images
you better have a point but I never felt that behind the shock there really
was one. There was a lot of white noise about the context of AIDS etc but a
gay friend of mine who bought some Mapplethorpe monograph grinned when I
made some comment about not really getting what all the fuss was about and
said conspiratorially 'very high quality
gay porn'. And it all made a strange kind of sense after that.
- -- 
Johnny Deadman

http://www.pinkheadedbug.com