Contemporary Art Gallery

Robert Mapplethorpe

July 18 (Sat.),1992,to November 3 (Tue.),1992

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Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito　1992

The first retrospective of American artist Robert Mapplethorpe in Japan, presenting 170 pieces, which ranged from his early works to those produced in his last days. It was also shown at Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum (June 2 - July 2, 1992), the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura (January 9 - February 7, 1993), Nagoya City Art Museum (February 13 - April 4, 1993) and the Museum of Modern Art, Shiga (April 10 - May 23, 1993).
The exhibition intended to make it clear, at the very close of the modernistic age, that Robert Mapplethorpe divulged contradictions of modernism and attempted to create a new value.
The exhibition consisted of two divisions, products in his early years and those after his contraction of AIDS. As was shown in his early collages and installations near the entrance, Mapplethorpe, under the influence of modernism, used intense sexual images to burst the bounds of the world, thus trying to broaden our horizons. In due course, his effort reached the first climax by unfettering the repressed bodies of black people, homosexuals, sadists and masochists. However, once he knew that his own body was doomed by AIDS, Mapplethorpe sought to establish a closer relationship with earthly beauty by continually photographing flowers until his death. In the last room the exhibition ended with flower pictures from his last days and a self-portrait just before his death.