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CURATED BY SCISSOR SISTERS
Robert Mapplethorpe was an icon of the American avant-garde in the late twentieth century, embodying in his life and art a powerful sense of freedom in all its manifestations – creative, political, personal, sexual.
Since his untimely death from an AIDS-related illness in 1989, Mapplethorpe’s presence has continued to be felt across all art forms, his unrepentantly honest and meticulously composed explorations of desire, transgression and identity offering inspiration and challenges to a wide range of visual artists, filmmakers, writers and musicians. Scissor Sisters, one of the preeminent bands to emerge from New York’s art scene in the past decade, last year celebrated Mapplethorpe’s distinctively dark and decadent sensibility by deploying a series of Mapplethorpe’s photographs as the artwork for their most recent album release, as well as the singles from the album and the design concept for the accompanying world tour.
This exhibition brings together the seven Mapplethorpe images chosen by Scissor Sisters, along with other photographs, Polaroids and unique and rarely seen sculptures by the artist, and with the band’s selection of important works by major contemporary artists who have admired or been influenced by Mapplethorpe’s aesthetic and attitude. Uncompromising but life-affirming, Mapplethorpe’s fascination with eroticism and mortality, beauty and liberty produced very contemporary interpretations of universal themes, themes which found articulation through the artist’s exacting gaze upon the harmonic, indeed sculptural, possibilities of the objects and scenarios he encountered. His practice was distinguished by the expression of an outlook that ranged from irreverent to subversive to starkly brutal, through a rigorously disciplined language of formal and tonal composition. This unswerving commitment to the pursuit of ideal form, however unconventionally realised, exemplified a potent trend in contemporary art, where the relationships and tensions between sensuous excess and controlled restraint are made visually manifest.
Works
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Oswaldo Macia, Equilibrium, 2010 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Amaryllis, 1985 -
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Matthew Barney, DE LAMA LÂMINA: A Raiz da Lâmina, 2004 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Self Portrait, 1978 -
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Tom Burr, Black Folding Screen, (or, Blue Movie, 1969, aka Fuck), 2010 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Untitled (Milton Moore), 1980 -
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Jack Pierson, TORMENT, 1997 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Cock with Belt, 1971 -
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Glenn Ligon, Red Portfolio, 1993 -
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Marc Swanson, Psychic Studies II, 2007 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Milton Moore, 1981 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Mirror, c.1971 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Untitled (Dom Perignon Box), 1974 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon, 1982 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon, 1982 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon, 1982 -
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Marc Swanson, Untitled (Vertical Shirt and Chains Box), 2009 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Derrick Cross, 1983 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Derrick Cross, 1983 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Derrick Cross, 1983 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Derrick Cross, 1983 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Star (Gold), 1983 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Phillip Prioleau, 1979 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Phillip Prioleau, 1979 -
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Banks Violette, Not Yet Titled (dwg09-07), 2009 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Stars, 1983 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Gun Blast, 1985 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Reed, 1980 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Leather Crotch, 1980 -
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Neil Gall, The Life of Pleasure, 2011 -
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Neil Gall, Remnant, 2010 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, White Gauze, 1984 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Flower With Knife, 1985 -
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Dan Fischer, Robert Mapplethorpe, 2011 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Bondage, 1974 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Bondage, 1974 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Flower, 1985 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Ken Moody, 1984 -
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Scott Treleaven, The Dog’s a Vapour, 2008 -
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Scott Treleaven, Untitled (Silverstar), 2008 -
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Scott Treleaven, Cimitero Drawing 3, 2010 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Freaks, 1968 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Arrow, 1983 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Jack Walls, 1983 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, George Bradshaw, 1980 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Arrow, 1983 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon, 1981 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon, 1980 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Arrow, 1983 -
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Gillian Wearing, Me as Robert Mapplethorpe (based upon the Robert Mapplethorpe work: Self Portrait, 1988. Copyright Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation), 2009 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Skull and Crossbones, 1983 -
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Banks Violette, Not Yet Titled (The End Edition), 2010 -
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Robert Mapplethorpe, Self Portrait, 1988
Installation
