Getty Museum
Tulips
Creator
Robert MapplethorpeAmerican Photographer · 1946–1989
All works by this person →A key figure in late 20th-century photography, Mapplethorpe created work with a distinctive tension between opposites: sacred and profane, mainstream and underground, light and dark. From his early Polaroid portraits, to his fashion photography and later controversial work, Mapplethorpe's photographs are well-ordered and emotionally restrained, with dangerously chaotic and sensuous elements below.
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1978
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
>I don't want to leave too much to chance. > >--Robert Mapplethorpe The ruffled silhouette of this bouquet of tulips contrasts with the geometric shapes of black, white and grey around it. Mapplethorpe carefully arranges these elements so that a traditional subject, the floral still life, becomes, quite literally, edgy. The composition is disconcerting, as a viewer is uncertain how the vase can balance on the corner of the table, or how exactly the planes of the foreground and background are angled. The resulting image is at once lovely and vaguely unsettling. Mapplethorpe's diverse body of work also included fashion, nudes, portraits, and erotic and sadomasochistic subjects, and is distinguished by an elegant, classical sensibility with an undercurrent of darker complexity.
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