ARTIST ROOMS: Robert Mapplethorpe, Tate Modern

Focusing on his portraiture this display gives an insight into the artist’s iconic black & white aesthetic.  Mapplethorpe’s exquisite attention to the interplays of shadow and light endows his human subjects with a classicising aura. But this can lie at odds with his sensationalist subject matter. Most controversially known for his photographs of truly extreme S&M acts, Mapplethorpe’s images can sometimes seem most shocking for the way that they privilege both the beautiful and the explicit. It was this insistence on aesthetics and formalism that got Mapplethorpe’s works out of a tricky censorship lawsuit at the close of the 1980s. 
In the 1970s Mapplethorpe was at the heart of New York’s avant-garde art scene. Striking portraits of artist friends include modern masters such as Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, and particularly cheeky Louise Bourgeois. His portrayals are calculated in their composition, preconceived rather than spontaneous. Yet this doesn’t make them void of personality. In one such masterpiece featuring Andy Warhol, we encounter a dominating figure, a showman in a shocking white wig, but one whose expression defies his posing; emotionally exposed, he attempts to reach out to the viewer. 
This collection is also unique in the opportunity it offers to see the man behind the lens. In a comprehensive selection of self-portraits, Mapplethorpe shifts between identities: sometimes admitting vulnerability behind a masquerade of makeup and furs, at other times hardened, leather-clad and vehemently exuding brazen sexuality. With a life tragically cut short by AIDS in 1989, this incredible collection traces the trajectory of a creative genius with a touching view on his final years. It is a triumph for Tate and a must-see show!