Robert Mapplethorpe
[Photographer, b. 1946, Floral Park, Long Island, d. 1989, Boston, Massachusetts.]
Sex is magic. If you channel it right, there’s more energy in sex than art.
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A cock is more problematic [than flowers] when you’re photographing, especially if you want it erect. You can’t jiggle the lights as much, and it’s hard to refine the photograph as much as you’d like...
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I’m not after beauty, I’m after perfection, and they’re not always the same.
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My whole point is to transcend the subject… go beyond the subject somehow, so that the composition, the lighting, all around, reaches a certain point of perfection.
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Perfection means you don’t question anything about the photograph.
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I just hope I can live long enough to see the fame.
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I was part of [the gay sadomasochistic subculture]. Some of those experiences that I later recorded I had experienced firsthand, without a camera.
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People have done pornographic pictures forever, but most of the people who involve themselves in explicit sexuality aren’t really artists.
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