Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe  was an American photographer known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and naked men. The frank, homosexual eroticism of some of the work of his middle period triggered a more general controversy about the public funding of artworks.

Although his work deals with sex (in particular, homosexuality), violence, and race, three extremely sensitive and often confrontational themes, its pristine quality enabled his photography to bridge the gap between provocative subject matter and artistic respectability.

Mapplethorpe's notoriety came from a series of sexually explicit photographs of Manhattan's gay community which he made during the 1970s. The implied violence and sadomasochism of some of these images have caused some to label them pornography. Others feel that because Mapplethorpe was a part of the community which he recorded, he helped New York gays to define themselves in a positive way. Even now, seven years after his death, wherever his work is exhibited it is accompanied with outcries of moral outrage. Mapplethorpe explored the extremities of the New York gay scene and documented it for all time. He recognised that it was a period that had a time limit on itself and for him also. The photographs from that period can no longer be taken because the scene has changed so dramatically with the advent of AIDS and also society's increasing tolerance towards homosexuals. He eroticised the leather scene too. His obsessive personality eroticised life and his passion made his subjects icons because of his Catholic background. The leather scene reflected his Catholic background of martyrs suffering violent deaths or enduring self-torture.

There are other photos I would like to include, but they are pure filth, so I haven't...