Robert Mapplethorpe “Self-Portrait” 1983
Opening later this week, the Old Gala House in the Scottish town of Galashiels will be hosting an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe, whose photographs are amongst the most provocative images of 20th century. The exhibition is part of the Artist Rooms scheme, through which more than 725 art works, donated by dealer Anthony d’Offay, are displayed in the UK for those who don’t live in big cities with great museums. Last year a similar Mapplethorpe show, again part of Artist Rooms, was at Dunoon, a Scottish town at the remote tip of Argyll Forest Park.
Born in New York in 1946, Mapplethorpe is remembered best for pushing the boundaries of photography in both technique and subject choice, including his homoerotic images of nude men. He became incredibly famous for his black and white photographs reveling in the human figure: athletic, nude, and exquisite. Since his death from AIDS related complications in 1989, a photographic portrait of Andy Warhol by Mapplethorpe became amongst the most expensive photograph of all time when it sold for $643.200 in 2006, while his charity, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation has raised millions of dollars in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Robert Mapplethorpe, “Andy Warhol” 1987
Sold for $643,200 at Christie’s New York on 17 October 2006
The Old Gala House exhibition will have 64 works, including eight self-portraits that were never been on display before and a photo portrait of artist Robert Rauschenberg. Also on view will be a portrait of Mapplethorpe’s close friend Patti Smith, and Mapplethorpe’s friend Lisa Lyon, a body builder, is the subject of two photographs. Given his interest and passion for the human figure, it should come as no surprise that Mapplethorpe was friends with body builders! The Dunoon show included a photograph of Arnold Schwarzenegger back when he was a body builder, but we are not sure if it is part of the Old Gala House selection.
As the main donor and ex-officio curator of Artist Rooms, Anthony d’Offay is working non-stop. Just this year, the Artist Rooms tour is showing at 17 UK museums and galleries! Now 73, d’Offay ran a successful gallery in London that he closed in 2002. He explains how he got to know Mapplethorpe and his importance as an artist:
“From 1980, for 21 years, I was traveling the world. Particularly in New York, I had the experience when I was going home at night, of very often standing in Soho, waiting for a taxi, when I would encounter Robert who, I think, was not going home, he was going out. He had a day life and a night life. And when I was in Naples, I would always see Robert in that city of temptation, late at night or early in the morning. What was Robert doing? We all know what Robert was doing. He was not taking photographs, but he was collecting ideas and inspiration. If you think of a flame burning very brightly, one had the impression of Robert. He was always enormously friendly, and very kind, always saying he would like to take a photograph of me and my son – and like a fool I didn’t do it. And I didn’t represent him because we had so many artists and only a limited amount of time. For me, in the second half of the 20th century in American photography, the great figures are Diane Arbus and Robert Mapplethorpe. The longer you look at his work, the better you know it, the greater it gets, and that, for me, is the test of art.”
