Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe Dies of AIDS (March 9, 1989)

AIDS claimed Robert Mapplethorpe  in March 1989 when he was just 42 years old.  He became famous for his striking black and white photographs, many explicitly homoerotic with an S&M edge.  Whenever I hear or read Mapplethorpe's name three things come to mind: Patti Smith, the photograph "Man in Polyester Suit" and Cincinnati, Ohio. 

 

 

• Rock singer Patti Smith & Mapplethorpe were romantically involved as young adults and lived together in NYC from the late 1960s to mid-70s (when he realized he was gay).  
  

 

• "Man in Polyester Suit" is one of Mapplethorpe's most famous photographs.  It shows a black man wearing a suit with his rather large, uncut penis hanging out of the fly of his pants.  It's the image I remember most after viewing a Mapplethorpe exhibit at the Whitney Museum in 1988.  And since it was life-sized it really grabbed your attention. 

 

 

• In 1990 Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center and its director went on trial on charges of obscenity for organizing a Mapplethorpe exhibit that included some of his explicit homoerotic images (e.g. Mapplethorpe shoving the handle of a whip up his ass).  They were found not guilty.   Although thei lawsuit was about just a few photos in the exhibit, in actuality Mapplethorpe's body of work covered much more than gay S&M.

 

Although many books about Mapplethorpe have been published, the documentary Black White + Gray reveals the life he had with his partner Sam Wagstaff, whose financial support and social connections were instrumental in boosting Mapplethorpe's career.