Program No 61 Robert Mapplethorpe

A look at at the life and work of Robert Mapplethorpe a world renowned and controversial photographer who died of AIDS in 1989 It explores his photography his relationship to the downtown New York art world and the gay SM club scene prevalent in the eighties His infamously explicit pictures of the gay leather New York Underground were considered groundbreaking and made him a cause celebre Mapplethorpes portraits flowers erotic subject matter and artistic presentation elevated the photograph to serious art worthy of exhibition in galleries and museums