An exhibition featuring child nudes and homosexual sadomasochism?

Whenever I use this description of Robert Mapplethorpe’s work, and continue by saying that he is one of my favorite artists, I always get weird looks. Mapplethorpe’s work includes sensitive and controversial photography, that when I saw one of his self-portraits, I had to avert my eyes a little. His work is not the same aesthetic as classical or renaissance art, it provokes its own beauty, that may seem offensive to some.

Before reading the rest of this article, look up some of his work, especially some of his more controversial ones. As you look at them, take a moment to think, why they are controversial or why they may make you uncomfortable. Relate it to paintings involving the objectification of women for and made by white heterosexual men. Consider how these are considered traditionalist and aesthetically pleasing whereas photographs and questionable mediums involving the objectification of man and view from other minority social groups was what was considered too controversial for the public.

Mapplethorpe’s most controversial exhibit, The Perfect Moment, is what created public backlash and created tensions in the art community.

This piece consisted of pictures fitted into three rows of a slightly elevated, slanted platform. Each row depicted a letter of his XYZ format; the X row depicting his most offensive images consisting of gay sadomasochism and two child nudes. Jesse Helms, a congressman in the late 1980s, described the work as Mapplethorpe’s HIV infection contaminating art, therefore associating homosexuality with sickness.

Using the images of nudes that Mapplethorpe used, he also progressed this claim by associating homosexuality with pedophilia and child pornography, disregarding classical art that depicted child nudes, but since classical paintings consisted of Christian themes, it was considered as what art should be.

Even the way Helm’s depicted Mapplethorpe’s art was in no way representative of the work—instead Helm’s taking the route of oversexualizing the piece, bringing the thought of “Hey, Mr. Helms, are you positive that it wasn’t you that imagined an erotic position between two men on a marble-tabletop; a description that matches none of the art in Mapplethorpe’s Perfect Moment?”

Helm’s regressive and prejudice views of Serrano’s and Mapplethorpe’s art were central in shaping the opinions of the conservative public during the culture wars of the early 90s that affected funding to artists from the NEA and restricted their creativity and political stance on issues, overall limiting the free speech of artists.

In writing this, it seems limiting in my case that I am not including photos of Mapplethorpe’s work (or even heavy descriptions of the art), it’s not included because it is still viewed as offensive and gruesome for public view. Even if this century depicts itself as being progressive and unprejudiced, the type of art that Mapplethorpe published, would seem too explicit and not meant for the public eye.

This era is still stuck in the regressive, traditionalist view of what art should look like. We conform to the norms of Western beauty; strictly defining beauty as aesthetically pleasing and diminishing the creativeness and provoking the fear of artists (and minority groups that do not fit this Western aesthetic) from straying from the norm.

We have formed an aesthetic distinction that favors western beauty, discriminating against art that seems explicit.