In 1989 Robert Mapplethorpe’s his solo exhibition tour “The Perfect
Moment” which he created in the latter years of his life shocked and angered
the art world. The images contained homoerotic and sadomasochistic self
portraits of Mapplethorpe that were deemed offensive and resulted in the
Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington pulling out of hosting the exhibition in
its galleries. Whilst some art institutions chose to display the collection,
the Contemporary Arts Centre were charged with obscenity and although found not
guilty, raised the questions about how far an artist can push the boundaries of
acceptance from the viewer as seen below (Mapplethorpe died from
complications arising from AIDS in 1989.)
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Mapplethorpe, Self-Portrait with Bullwhip,
1978.
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The pioneer of the
psychological idea of Abjection was Julia Kristeva who identified in part that “The abject confronts us, on the one hand,
with those fragile states where man strays on the territories of animal. Thus by
way of abjection, primitive societies have marked out a precise are of their
culture in order to remove it from the threatening world of animals or
animalism as representatives of sex and murder”
It is clear, with this
idea in mind, how images such as the one above may elicit negative reaction
during a time when the American public was struggling to deal with the effects
of the AIDS epidemic and the idea of the ‘gay plague’; the work divided opinion
between the fearful and the culturally tolerant.
The image itself shows a sense of great composition and
contrast between the white sheet covering the chair and the black leather whip,
boots and belt. I find even myself thinking “if it were not for the
bullwhip...” but would my mind follow the same line of the composition? Also, would the image have the same impact? Whilst looking at the image you are confronted with the idea of servant and master, something Mapplethorpe has portrayed in equal measure.
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Joel-Peter Witkin
Ars Moriendi 2007
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http://www.edelmangallery.com/witkin54.html
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| Venus and Cupid with a partridge, Titian c.1500 | |
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http://www.artchive.com/viewer/z.html
This idea can also be seen later much later in the work
of Joel-Peter Witkin. The image Ars Moriendi (2007) show a woman reclining nonchalantly on a velvet throw, the image appears to be based on Titian's Venus and cupid with an organist(c.1548-9) with the putrefied head symbolizing cupid. Maybe the photographer is making a statement about the mythological subjects he has appropriated; cupid is dead...desire is dead. He also may be eluding to the prosperity of the independent female figure - notice the mirror and the unsightly heads in the foreground (possibly the heads of adonis who abandoned her)
Diane
Arbus and the New
Diane
Arbus was a photographer who was known for photographing people on the fringe
of society; people who are slightly removed from what could be deemed
“acceptable” and makes them so.
Take this image as an example; his hair in
curlers, eyebrows plucked, nails done and make-up in process could be just
another woman in the act of getting ready for the day if it were not for the
overtly masculine nose and jaw line.
It is alledged that somebody spat on this
image during its exhibition in 1967 which again shows the almost physical
aversion to the ‘other’.
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Diane
Arbus, A young man in curlers at home on West 20th Street, N.Y.C. 1966
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| Anonymous 60 year old phone sex operator,
Phonesex Series, Phillip Toledano. Circa 2008 |
A much more recent example of this fringe society is this
image of an old woman who, although not fully exposed, pushes the boundary of
what is considered descent.
What is similar about the idea is that the identity of the 2
sitters is that they both participate in something that we know exists but only
as something ‘other’
Both photographers confront us.
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| Tattooed man
at a carnival, Diane Arbus circa 197 |
An example by Arbus of a man at a carnival who could have
very well been part of a freak show.
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| Rick Genest and Andre
Pijic for Auslander by Marcelo Krisilcic |
Rick Genest a man with a full body tattoo of decomposing
flesh and exposed brain alongside androgynous model Andre Pijic who frequently
models female clothing for major fashion houses.
IANA, Phillip Toledano
ALLANAH, Phillip Toledano
Taken from the series “A new kind of beauty” Toledano
photographs people who have undergone extreme surgery to become physically what
they are psychologically. We recognise the body parts of a woman but some cannot
quite acknowledge the idea of the complete feminine and instead choose to
define it by ‘gender identity disorder’. However, the images are taken in what
appears to be celebration of the ‘other’ highlighting the new kind of beauty in
a classical portrait style rather than an anthropological sense, thus
highlighting the idea that photographs of the abject body are important in
terms of allowing us to find a way
to accept the unknown.
