|
|
Jacob Matham after Hendrick Goltzius:
The Graces, 16th century, © 2004 State Hermitage Museum, St.
Petersburg
|
Robert Mapplethorpe: Ken, Lydia and
Tyler, 1985, © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation
|
While in the Renaissance explicit representation was often
imbedded in the context of ancient myths, Mapplethorpe was concerned with
reduction, concentration, and purity. If human physiognomy was exaggerated
throughout the 16th century by
Hendrick Goltzius,
Cellini, or
Michelangelo, whose allegories and genre scenes portrayed gods on
Earth, then Mapplethorpe was interested in incorporating abstraction to
give his models a touch of the supra-human. Whether in the fragment or the
detail, the bodies portrayed always seem to reflect a larger-than-life
aesthetic, for instance in the works on the bodybuilder
Lisa Lyon or the graceful gymnastics teacher Ken Moody. This proximity to
the body, which appears both as subject and object, creates uncanny
hybrids: underarm hair becomes a dark cave; the navel protrudes like an
alien organ; ample buttocks, muscles, and genitals are reminiscent of
landscapes and undiscovered body zones, which the viewer is invited to
tread upon like so much unknown territory.
Mapplethorpe doesn’t
merely photograph situations of sexual transgression; he creates images
that themselves invite transgression in that the viewer and the viewed
image suddenly share the obsessive way of life resonating in each of his
pictures. In a certain sense, Mapplethorpe peers back at us through the
bodies he photographs and smiles – sometimes coldly, sometimes
diabolically. While the prints and engravings from the Renaissance pick up
on and illustrate mythological narratives, which the reader of
Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, for instance, was able to imagine purely on the
strength of his own fantasy, Mapplethorpe creates an imaginative free
space using the intensified clarity of the physical.
|
Precisely because he shows everything, excluding nothing,
the viewer develops a relationship to the subjects his photographs
portray, searching out the stories the bodies refuse to provide in their
all-encompassing focus on form. It’s no accident that many of
Mapplethorpe’s models worked on their bodies for many years until the
muscular perfection of an
Arnold Schwarzenegger or a Lisa Lyon was attained: they are body actors.
But what does the body really want to say in times of sexual libertinism,
fitness cult, and beautiful appearance á la Hollywood?
There
were problems with the truth of the body throughout the late Renaissance,
as well. With the beginning of medical anatomy, a large part of the enigma
of our existence became lost: the human had become a machine in which
various juices circulate and that functioned thanks to the mechanical
interplay of bone and flesh beneath the skin. As though it were a triumph
over the human exterior, early copper plates portray a male figure holding
its skin aloft with its fingertips like a superfluous cloak, and
Leonardo da Vinci reduces even the sexual act to a topography of organs,
fleshy mass, and fluids. On the other hand, Mannerism seems to want to
sing a hymn to the stylization of the surface in opposition to this type
of enlightenment: the gods did not merely create man according to their
own image; in celebrating his physical perfection, he also honors his
divine heritage. Thus, the Mannerist artist once again becomes a mediator
between the myth and the world. In a similar way, Mapplethorpe also
addresses the body by idealizing its beauty while at the same time closely
associating it with his own wanton desires: “My images are a puzzle to me,
as well… photography and sexuality have a lot in common. Both are question
marks, and that’s precisely what excites me most in life – the unknown.”
Rainer Maria Rilke wrote on the sculptures of
August Rodin: “This is a gesture that makes a god necessary.” In the case
of Mapplethorpe, the viewer is similarly enchanted.
Harald Fricke
“Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition,” through October 17,
Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, Unter den Linden 13/15, 10117 Berlin; daily
from 11 A.M. to 8 P.M., Thursdays to 10 P.M. The catalogue, with essays by
Arkady Ippolitov, Jennifer Blessing, and Germano Celant, was published by
Hatje Cantz Publishers and costs 34 Euros.
Translation:
Andrea Scrima
[1]
[2]
|
