From: Brian Ellis (bellis60@earthlink.net)
Date: 11/03/00-03:22:14 PM Z
Anyone who read "Last Exit to Brooklyn," which predated Maplethorpe by
fifteen or twenty years, knew the subculture existed. They just had no
particular interest in seeing it and, having seen it, wish they hadn't.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Monica Mitchell" <kore54@hotmail.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 4:04 PM
Subject: Re: photo history lecture
>
> >Visually? Nothing too new here, either, except *some* of his work
included
> >a documenary-style depiction of the gay subculture, albiet "shocking"
> >enough
> >to the the bible-belt extremeists of the USA to threaten the very
existence
> >of publically-sponsered art. Certainly he has not "greatly affected the
> >medium".
>
>
> I have problems with this statement.
>
> Anyone who does something no one
> has done before is in fact,
> "affecting the medium".
>
> Mapplethorpe did that.
>
> He produced some great imagery.
> Both beautiful *and* ugly.
>
> Some of it, like the body of work
> you reference above, was mind blowing.
> How many people knew that
> subculture existed before
> Mapplethorpe's images came out?
> How many people realized their
> sexual fantasies, or pequlirities,
> were in fact, quite normal?
> How many people asked questions,
> started thinking, started relotutions,
> all focuesed around on body of work?
>
> Isn't that what we want out of art?
>
> Isn't that the whole point?
> The think, to express, to feel...
> Isn't that "influential"??
>
>
> You can rip apart his technical merits.
> Honestly, I don't know how
> he got from idea to print.
> Frankly, I don't care.
>
> His work is visually stimulating,
> and his ideas are thought provoking.
>
> And he's part of the reason
> I started to *really* look at
> photography as an expressive
> art form rather then a series
> of pretty pictures to be hung
> over the mantle piece or
> stuck in a photo album.
>
> For the most part,
> his work said something.
>
> And that says a lot.
>
>
> >Mapplethorpe has been included for sensational reasons alone, in order to
> >reduce the "yawn factor". What kind of a priority is this? His
inclusion
> >calls into question the ethics of the instructor, and with it her
> >competency. Would other disciplines use sensationalism for a selection
> >criterion? Economics? History? So why must photography be "dumbed
down"?
>
> I think if you look at
> Mapplethorpe's work that
> doesn't include leather and whips,
> you might think differently.
>
> The way he photographed
> black skin on white is a
> photo study in and of itself.
>
>
> -Monica
>
>
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