“If you want a Robert Mapplethorpe to love, you need the early Polaroids. The Polaroids are the warmest and the hottest things he ever made, these fuzzy palm-sized original prints of him and his friends and lovers in the zone between playing and posing. Each one, whether it’s a naked self-portrait—he’s hooded and chained, staring straight at the lens—or the spray of flowers laid on a pillow, is a close and confident exchange of some kind.”
Jen Graves excellent call to action (come see this show!) in this week’s Stranger here.
