Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpewas an American photographer, known for his sensitive yet blunt treatment of controversial subject-matter in the large-scale, highly stylized black and white medium of photography. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-portraits and still-life images of flowers. His most controversial work is that of the underground BDSM scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s of New York. The homoeroticism of this work fuelled a national debate over the public funding...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth4 November 1946
CountryUnited States of America
Robert Mapplethorpe quotes about
I think that it was a great advantage to go into photography not knowing much about it. Not thinking. I think one of the problems with many photographers today is that they never see for themselves, but just like everybody else...
I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before.
People don't have time to wait for somebody to paint their portraits anymore. The money is in photography.
I was a Catholic boy, I went to church every Sunday. A church has a certain magic and mystery for a child. It still shows in how I arrange things. It's always little altars.
With photography, you zero in; you put a lot of energy into short moments, and then you go on to the next thing.
If I had been born one or two hundred years ago, I might have been a sculptor, but photography is a very quick way to see, to make sculpture.
I never liked photography. Not for the sake of photography. I like the object. I like the photographs when you hold them in your hand.
If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.
I went into photography because it seemed like the perfect vehicle for commenting on the madness of today's existence.
The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.
People have done pornographic pictures forever, but most of the people who involve themselves in explicit sexuality aren't really artists.
I don't think any collector knows his true motivation.
I recorded that because it happened to me. I wasn't making a point
I should try to get some sleep as one doesn't know what tomorrow may bring