Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures

Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's 2016 documentary covers the life and work of Robert Mapplethorpe, among the most contested photographers of the twentieth century. It takes its title from Senator Jesse Helms's demand on the Senate floor during the fight over a Mapplethorpe exhibition, an argument that turned art, public funding and obscenity into a culture war in America. The film treats his flower still lifes, his portraits and his fetish photographs as parts of the same body of work. The directors do not avoid the sensational, but neither do they take a clear side between defending and criticising the work. Criticism of how Mapplethorpe framed Black male bodies is included, an unusual honesty in an artist portrait. The absence of Patti Smith is conspicuous; her account stands apart in the book Just Kids. Who it's for: viewers interested in the history of photography, the New York art world of the 1980s and the argument between art and censorship. Who it's not for: anyone uncomfortable with explicit sexual content, or who will find the emphasis on the artist's private life unnecessary.