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
To make pictures big is to make them more powerful
If I am at a party, I want to be at the party. Too many photographers use the camera to avoid participating in things. They become professional observers.
I don't like that particular word 'shocking.' I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before … I was in a position to take those pictures. I felt an obligation to do them.
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.
The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.
When I have sex with someone I forget who I am. For a minute I even forget I'm human. It's the same thing when I'm behind a camera. I forget I exist.
I always thought I was good. That's why it was so frustrating when other people didn't agree.
I went into photography because it seemed like the perfect vehicle for commenting on the madness of today's existence.
Beauty and the devil are the same thing.
I am obsessed with beauty. I want everything to be perfect, and of course it isn’t. And that’s a tough place to be because you’re never satisfied.
I like to look at pictures, all kinds. And all those things you absorb come out subconsciously one way or another. You'll be taking photographs and suddenly know that you have resources from having looked at a lot of them before. There is no way you can avoid this. But this kind of subconscious influence is good, and it certainly can work for one. In fact, the more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.
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.
If I have to change my lifestyle, I don't want to live
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.