Robert Mapplethorpe: Photography, Homoeroticism, and Senator Jesse Helms :: Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe Papers

Robert Mapplethorpe Photography, homosexualism, and Senator Jesse HelmsNo strong suit or arena is free from political assimilation. Perhaps this is why the frontier the personal is political is so reverberant in such a multitude of communities. In the fine wiles community, every art office reflects a personal decision or touch what medium to best describe a subject or idea in, or the corporal shape and making of art by an workman, for example, are ways in which each artist has ownership over his or her own work. When art is displayed for an audience, the very act of placing a personal piece into the public compass creates a forum for interactive and political dialogue and judgment. To present prowess in a public arena authorizes the audience to construe variant and assess that art. The policies and politics that dictate the arrival of art for the public sentiment are not immune to the authority and judgment making that occurs in one case the art is on display. In order fo r galleries, museums, or universities to display artwork, their elevated level officials must approve the works. Furthermore, when the work is on display it reflects back down on the institution it is in, the leaders of that institution who approve it, and ultimately the artist who made the work herself. There are foundations and organizations that are funded by the presidential term for the promotion and distribution of fine arts, which of necessity are bound by the legal dictates of the governing bodies and the public it represents for these reasons. When artwork or an artist is controversial, it becomes a political issue due to governmental involvement in living of --and thus universally approving-- the contentious art or art-maker. For artists who work in the photographic medium, controversies arise more readily due to the realism of the images. Homoerotic photographic art in particular is the site of political and well-disposed stigmatization, as exemplified by Robert Mapp lethorpes life and work. Mapplethorpes photography was the catalyst from which conservative senator Jesse Helms was equal to symbolize the misinterpretations of visual representation for real or authentic march and criticize his work as obscene due to its homoerotic content.Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) was a gay male artist who died at the age of 43 of AIDS. His technically brilliant and stylistically disreputable images sparked both controversy and contemplation. He was equally praised and derogated by his stark and honest appraisal of the erotic male nude, his depiction of sadomasochistic culture and practices, and his own and others homoerotic and multiracial portraits.