Exhibit on Mapplethorpe, curated by Hockney

that would be good to see those pieces that aren't normally seen. Who knows, I might move myself over to London to have a look.
Not doing anything else...

68 portraits are linked at the bottom of the page -

Warning, not everyone will appreciate viewing some of them, because of adult content.

Good morning Ossobuco. Thanks so much for bringing this show to my attention. David Hockney has a very good eye for photography--in fact, he has a very good eye in general! When I visited the gallery website, I found images of several photographs I'd never seen--and would like to see. Alas, the thumbnail representations do not enlarge when you click them--at least not on my machine--so these powerful photgraphs are much diminished in effect. Of course, the proper way to experience a exhibition--both the individual artworks and their interrelationships--is to visit it, but London is not a possibility for me right now. Although I cannot be sure that I identified the subjects in every thumbnail at which I squinted, it seems that Hockney left out Mapplethorpe's lovely images of (clothed!) children--a area of his oeuvre that I find particularly interesting. It is obvious from looking at these images of the very young that these subjects are completely at ease, a quality that tells me that Mapplethorpe, despite some of his "rougher" interests, had a supportive, rather than ominous persona. I have read that he was similarly warm and friendly to the women who posed for him. And I ended up writing about this subject, a poem that was occasionally exhibited with one of his photographs of female nudes. I was very pleased to encourage people to consider that Mapplethorpe was a sensitive, complex person--not the single-minded ogre he was often made out to be by some myopic critics. If you have not studied the book of Mapplethorpe portraits devoted to women and children (good introduction by Joan Didion), I highly recommend it.
All of Hockney's choices seem to have excellent composition. Of course, Mapplethorpe's use of light is likely his greatest art, but, hey, I am grateful to have seen even this miniature exhibition. Thank you, Ossobuco!

You're welcome, Miklos!

I did discover, maybe you haven't - I didn't figure it out until maybe the 40th thumbnail, that if you scroll down on each thumbnail page, you'll find the photo title, often identifying... for example, there's a Rauschenberg photo in the group.

But wait, I did click on them and get the enlarged photos..
good grief, I'll go back and confirm this.

Yes, I went back and checked, the thumbnails can be clicked on once, and a new window opens with the larger photo and a title at the bottom.

Thank you, Ossobuco. I guess I'll forever be a techno-klutz when it comes to computers. Now, with your having pointed the way, I'll be able to really look at some very good pictures.

I'm only a few steps ahead of you, Miklos, I'm also a techno-klutz.

Ossobuco, An idiosyncratic exhibition! I wonder how many prints David Hockney was able to draw from. I would assume quite a few. If so, then why so many portraits--some of which consciously quote other photographers, not a gesture characteristic of Mapplethorpe. And why so few flowers, a subject with which Mapplethorpe was exceptionally adept? Do you have any feel for what Hockney might have been about with this exhibition? I greatly enjoy most of the Mapplethorpe images, but the selection mystifies me. My favorite images are "Texas Gallery" and "Mario Amaya"--which have exceptionally fine lighting. Wouldn't I like to see the actual photographs!
Again, Ossobuco, thank you very much! I'm headed back for a more thorough study.

Idiosyncratic, yes.

Well, I studied them again. I find them strikingly static, something I might not usually notice in portraits. Perhaps I would notice that with any portrait group. A kind of stiffness in gesture, if there was any gesture. (heh! I mean stiffness besides the obvious.)

I picked three, Marianne Faithful, Moe McDermott, and Texas Galery (sic). Not that they are the best photos, but that they had some appeal to my own eye... the first two had some level of gesture - reach and slump - that caught my interest, and the third worked for the light.

I like the photos of artists, like Ellsworth Kelly's, just because it is them, and not for particular photographic reasons.
I like the one of Chatwin, because it harkens to some old paintings I have passed by, though none in particular, just a sense of it.

And then I figured out.. there are other photos. Click on the words at the bottom, say, "silver gelatin prints", and you'll see more. (I haven't looked at them closely yet myself.)

Idiosyncratic, yes.

Well, I studied them again. I find them strikingly static, something I might not usually notice in portraits. Perhaps I would notice that with any portrait group. A kind of stiffness in gesture, if there was any gesture. (heh! I mean stiffness besides the obvious.)

I picked three, Marianne Faithful, Moe McDermott, and Texas Galery (sic). Not that they are the best photos, but that they had some appeal to my own eye... the first two had some level of gesture - reach and slump - that caught my interest, and the third worked for the light.

I like the photos of artists, like Ellsworth Kelly's, just because it is them, and not for particular photographic reasons.
I like the one of Chatwin, because it harkens to some old paintings I have passed by, though none in particular, just a sense of it.

And then I figured out.. there are other photos. Click on the words at the bottom, say, "silver gelatin prints", and you'll see more. (I haven't looked at them closely yet myself.)

Well, I found some I can say I'm interested in, the dye transfer photos -
http://www.alisonjacquesgallery.com/mapplethorpe_dye.php

Ossobuco, I, too, found most of the selected portraits "static." Too many seem archly-posed--and, again, this is not typical of Mapplethorpe. What was Hockney thinking? He can surely spot a frozen portrait. The mood of the Warhol portrait seems very good to me, but the complex business with his arms and hands detracts: it's as if one is reading a story in which too much of the narrative mechanism shows. Like you, I enjoyed some of the pictures of artists simply because they are artists whose work speaks to me.

Mysterious curation here!

I'll now look at the other pictures you found.

I'm off to work, will check in later today.

I thought the pictures of erected members were interesting. These were, I suspect, portraits of the only thing about the men that Mapplethorp considered significant. At least that's my interpretation. The pictures have power, in that they reflect the passion of the photographer, and to some extent the men since they are erected. The penis and the devil is humorous. I do not consider these photographs pornographic. Passion, whether heterosexual or homosexual is not in itself pornographic. Some of the paintings of little girls by Balthus are more pornographic.

I don't consider them porn either. I suppose that was talked about at length, eh, with his earlier exhibits. I don't know what is going on with me, I thought I'd like his work more.

Maybe I've looked at too many flower still lives and done too many of my own, years ago. On the sexual imagery, the one that most interests me is whatshername, carrying her package, one of the early photos in the show.
The iconographic 'member' imagery is fine, but.. sort of like flowered still lives...

Blossoms?

Ossobuco, If I were judging Mapplethorpe's work by this exhibition, I, too, would be disappointed. Too many of these images are highly predictable in subject and composition; the only quality that makes them at all out of the ordinary is their generally fine lighting. After studying this exhibition carefully several times, I cannot help but feel that--if he had many other images to choose from--Hockney made some really bum choices, in that he is showing the audience a limited and static Mapplethorpe. And I see no coherent vision behind the choices Hockney made. As an admirer of David Hockney the artist, I am as disappointed in his work here as curator as I am in the photographs themselves. Mapplethorpe has produced much stronger images.

JLN, I agree with you completely in your comparison of Mapplethorpe's blossoms and Balthus's pubescent girls. Nothing at all unsettling about the members, but much that is unsettling about the Lolitas. Your bringing up this significant difference in effect makes me wonder if, perhaps, the Mapplethorpe blossoms (at least in the exhibition under consideration) are too static to convey a genuine passion, which one might expect to be at least a bit unsettling. These photographs strike me more as an iconic expression of reflex, rather than something active and emotionally engaging. Maybe, in these images, members are like plants! And, to me, that suggests a problem with the photographs.

Thanks for the heads-up, Osso. I spotted this in the newspaper that the man next to me was reading on the tube, this morning!

I try to go and let you all know what the actual exhibition is like.

KP

I agree, that is what I was trying to say about them being like the still lives of flowers... in this exhibit.

Blossoms, amusing...

Perhaps these choices are on purpose, the selection being to pick prints that have their subjects be iconic, whether a portrait or still life.