Galeri Nev İstanbul is pleased to present the second solo exhibition by the American artist Robert Mapplethorpe in Istanbul.
The quest of this exhibition, which is open until 31 July, is to re-contextualize Robert Mapplethorpe by introducing the viewers a new insight through his lesser-known works that reveal the most vital aspects of his art without surrendering the curation to a biographical theme. Hence, the self-portraits, the Polaroids as well as the S&M pictures are deliberately left out of this selection for the latter are among the artist’s least theatrical and most documentary works.
Throughout his career, Mapplethorpe was driven by the urge of emphasizing sculptural and pictoral qualities in his work. Hugely influenced by the trailblazer of photography, Nadar in addition to the “Photo-Seccessionists” like Stieglitz, Day and Steichen, Mapplethorpe’s apprehension of photography evolved towards a classical formality in the early 1970s. Correspondingly, Mapplethorpe has renounced improvisation towards 1975 as soon as he’s stopped making use of Polaroids and took up the Hasselblad 500 which compelled him to work slower, constraining him to the square frame in his viewfinder.
Having worked with photographic cut-outs earlier in his carreer, Mapplethorpe has intrinsically inclined to an aesthetic of fragments. This propensity is especially evident in his body parts, where an amputating crop enabled him to investigate the image as detailed as possible while stripping them from their physical and emotional substance. However, they’re never anonymously “Untitled”. Seen as a deliberate work of art, the fragment for Mapplethorpe is as perfect as the traditionally complete image. In a sense, it is no different than Michelengelo or any other old master’s “study for…” with pen and ink.
The viewers often perceive an affinity between his different subjects, like flowers and body parts including explicit sexual compositions. Photographing sex forthright, Mapplethorpe does not depend on allegories to evoke the idea. This reaffirms the fact that such affinities exist merely because it’s purely the form he’s after, and not the symbols they carry. What binds the objects visually is his eye and his consistent approach.
The ever-recurring theme of duality in Mapplethorpe’s work is the very nature of his times. The good and bad, light and shadow, past and present, masculine and feminine. A freedom from barriers is his pursuit. Utterly contemporary in his context, Mapplethorpe aspires a beauty that is eternal.
