Robert Mapplethorpe
Pictures / Self Portrait
About this artwork
Mapplethorpe is posing as a sharp suited office worker here, with only his hand in view. In contrast with another photograph of his hand in exactly the same action and position, the implication here is of daytime office culture and conformity. Its partner image by contrast suggests covert, countercultural fetishism, with the two images together contrasting day and night time behaviour in 1980s New York.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Robert Mapplethorpe (1946 - 1989) American
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title:Pictures / Self Portrait
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date created:1977
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materials:Gelatin silver print on paper
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measurements:35.20 x 34.60 cm (framed: 68.40 x 66.20 x 3.10 cm)
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object type:
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credit line:ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Lent by Artist Rooms Foundation 2014
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accession number:AL00360
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gallery:
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Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe
The American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe became famous, not to say, notorious, in the 1970s and 1980s for his photographs of the male nude and sexually explicit, gay imagery. Although often considered controversial, Mapplethorpe tested the right to individual freedom of expression. These...
