Robert Mapplethorpe’s Many Subjects Take Centre Stage In New Exhibition
Joshua Graham, SHOWstudio
December 2023
‘He wasn’t afraid to say what he wanted to say through the lens of the camera. And he didn’t care if it shocked people,’ curator Alison Jacques tells me of the American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The controversial artist known for his sexually explicit portraiture of New York City’s leather and BDSM scene through the 80s, is the subject of Jacques’ latest exhibition, which opened to the public last night. While his phallic still lifes aren’t relegated to the shadows, Jacques’s curation aimed to present a wider breadth of the artist’s subject matter, from his famous flowers to his network of celebrity friends. […]