Robert Mapplethorpe

Text by Ikuroh Takano, Translated by Seiko Uyeda

Parco Co Ltd, Tokyo 1987, 100 pages, First Edition, English and Japanese Edition, 21x25,5cm, ISBN 9784891941499

euro 50,00

email if you want to buy [email protected]

Dedicated to Sam Wagstaff, Mapplethorpe's former lover, has an introduction by David Herskovvitz, editor of PAPER magazine. With 72 color and black and white photographs of many nudes (erotic and fetish) and some fashion and flower photographs. Includes photographs of Paloma Picasso, Alice Neel, Ken Moody, Lisa Lyons, Francesco Clemente and Patti Smith.

PEOPLE WHO NEED PEOPLE

More than any other art blockbuster I’ve attended, visitors at the Alice Neel show at The Met seemed to be involved with the paintings, not just reading the labels and passing through.

The exhibit arrives at the right moment, as New York City's institutions reopen post pandemic. And it’s topical. Neel’s most famous works, her painted portraits of family, art world friends, and Harlem neighbors from the 1960′s and 70′s, offer an alternate to canonical master painting, and the muscular Abstract Expressionism of her peers. She’s an artist training her eye on folks who are mostly marginalized, or entirely unseen, by art world culture.

The show is organized chronologically. The first gallery shows small portraits and street views, the second scenes of motherhood and family, and the last -- the most satisfying -- large-scale portraits of romantic couples. These last paintings have formal and emotional power. They remind me of David Hockney’s majestic portraits of LA habitues from the 1970′s. Neel’s canvases are nearly full-scaled, in bright palettes, with graphic energy that pleases the eye and a kind of brazen soulful observance. These are real people, captured clearly, in all their idiosyncrasies. The men and women are alive to the other’s presence, to the artist’s presence, and to being seen. The pictures draw one and hold one. They are mesmerizing and familiar.

The biggest crowd of visitors was gathered around Jackie Curtis and Ritta Redd (1970), that shows two men, one of them dressed as a woman. What is it that captivates? The men are touching but not embracing. They’re alert but not posing. They’re looking outwards but remain proudly self-possessed.

After a year and a half of isolation, of moving through days of work, school and home without the noise, annoyance and drama of other people, we find it here in full splendor. We see Jackie’s blue eye shadow and ripped stocking, and Ritta’s boyish striped jumper and delicate hands. We see who these people are, and we like them. That intimacy is not typically a concern of fine art.

Victoria with Cat, Alice Neel, 1981, Brooklyn Museum: Contemporary Art

© Estate of Alice Neel Size: sheet: 46 x 31 in. (116.8 x 78.7 cm) image: 40 x 26 in. (101.6 x 66 cm) Medium: Lithograph and screenprint on paper