Robert Mapplethorpe: 50 Americans

 

Americans Select Their Favorite Robert Mapplethorpe Photographs

by Marina Galperina via Flavorwire

A citizen from each state in the country picked a Robert Mapplethorpe photograph from an archive of 2000 for a fascinating exhibit that opens at the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York. A California artist is attracted to nostalgia (and Blondie’s Deborah Harry). A New York domestic abuse prosecutor is drawn in by a Mapplethorpe model’s vulnerability, while a Kentuckian is intoxicated by the “sexual quality” of his flowers. They come from diverse ages, races, occupations, backgrounds and familiarity of Mapplethorpe’s work, but together they re-contextualize his legendary oeuvre for the 21st century.

Robert Mapplethorpe
50 Americans
May 7 - June 18, 2011

Sean Kelly Gallery
528 West 29th Street
New York, NY 10001

Image: Deborah Harry, 1978. Copyright Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.