Review: Robert Mapplethorpe, Alison Jacques Gallery
Tish Wrigley, AnOther
September 2013
Few artists have defined an era and an art form with the style of Robert Mapplethorpe, whose silvery Polaroids of the famous, the scandalous, the beautiful and the subversive are passports back into the glamour and madness of 70s and 80s New York. From his portraits of friends and collaborators such as Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Arnold Schwarzenegger and of course Patti Smith, to his more experimental and visceral images toying with and documenting the sexual proclivities of the burgeoning gay scene in the city, his work is iconic in the true sense of the word, making for an extraordinary landmark in the portrayal of identity, fetish and desire. […]