Who’s Afraid of Robert Mapplethorpe?
Helen Stoilas and Anny Shaw, The Art Newspaper
March 2016
Twenty-five years after a landmark trial over exhibiting Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs, the debate about what can be shown in museums has shifted—but has not completely disappeared. The joint exhibition devoted to the late US photographer at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) and the J. Paul Getty Museum this week will show photographs from Mapplethorpe’s X Portfolio, which includes a provocative self-portrait with a bullwhip, but will omit two controversial images of children. […]