The huge problem with Mapplethorpe in the US is that he managed to convince the National Endowment for the Arts to PAY him for some of his more outrageous anti-Christian pictures which they then, very stupidly, put on display. This was so over the top as to offend even many moderate and left-wing Christians and agnostics. In the end, the NEA was forced to review its policies and has played a LOT nicer for the past decade. (Admittedly, the NEA has a real problem, in that it cannot justify its existence save as yet another pig at the public trough, but that is a discussion for another day.)
In other words, the issue was far less the crude and brutal offensiveness of his work -- after all, he had the right to produce whatever he wanted to produce -- as the fact that he maneuvered the government into PAYING for this with tax dollars. That was where he went through the fence.
The controversy certainly made him a household word in the US, but not in a very positive light. Whether this resulted in commercial sales, I know not, but it probably did. After all, if you piss off 75% of the people, you then become a hero to the other 25%. And the controversy did not break for several years after his demise, so I suspect that his Trust benefited but he did not.
I find his work neither especially interesting nor well made nor of any quality at all. He was a man on a mission, and I am so out of touch with his mission as to find that his work does not speak to me at all. In my view, he is a third-rater whose only notable act was getting the US Taxpayer to fund his dreck.
Maple White I admire. Mapplethorpe I do not! Marc msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir! --- Rollei List - Post to rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx - Subscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org - Unsubscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org - Online, searchable archives are available at //www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list
