Robert Mapplethorpe - Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter, 1979. Photograph on paper Humour is not something that we tend to associate with Mapplethorpe’s work, but this double portrait certainly has it. Unusually, Mapplethorpe has chosen to photograph these two men not in a neutral setting but in a cluttered environment of questionable taste. The implication is that this is where the men live. They are dressed in full black leather gear and the submissive seated partner is chained up and shackled to the bearded standing figure. The sado-masochistic ritual that is being enacted contrasts totally with the homey living room. The only pointer to darker currents is the table to the right made of deer antlers.
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Robert Mapplethorpe - Brian Ridley and Lyle Heeter, 1979. Photograph on paper

Humour is not something that we tend to associate with Mapplethorpe’s work, but this double portrait certainly has it. Unusually, Mapplethorpe has chosen to photograph these two men not in a neutral setting but in a cluttered environment of questionable taste. The implication is that this is where the men live. They are dressed in full black leather gear and the submissive seated partner is chained up and shackled to the bearded standing figure. The sado-masochistic ritual that is being enacted contrasts totally with the homey living room. The only pointer to darker currents is the table to the right made of deer antlers.

Perfection means you don’t question anything about the photograph. There are certain pictures I’ve taken in which you really can’t move that leaf or that hand. It’s where it should be, and you can’t say it could have been there. There is nothing to question as in a great painting. I often have trouble with contemporary art because I find it’s not perfect. It doesn’t have to be anatomically correct to be perfect either. A Picasso portrait is perfect. It’s just not questionable. In the best of my pictures, there’s nothing to question – it’s just there.
Robert Mapplethorpe 

Source: artpedia

Robert Mapplethorpe - Grace Jones, 1984. Photograph on paper From the Tate Gallery, London:  Grace Jones is a Jamaican-born singer, model and actress, known for her androgynous looks and her outrageous behaviour. She was very much part of the New York art and social scene in the 1980s. For this photograph her body has been painted by the New York graffiti artist, Keith Haring (1958-1990) with his characteristic pictograms and decorations. She is also wearing an exotic headdress and a conical wire bra, so that she looks like a voodoo doll or an aboriginal dancer.
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Robert Mapplethorpe - Grace Jones, 1984. Photograph on paper

From the Tate Gallery, London: 

Grace Jones is a Jamaican-born singer, model and actress, known for her androgynous looks and her outrageous behaviour. She was very much part of the New York art and social scene in the 1980s. For this photograph her body has been painted by the New York graffiti artist, Keith Haring (1958-1990) with his characteristic pictograms and decorations. She is also wearing an exotic headdress and a conical wire bra, so that she looks like a voodoo doll or an aboriginal dancer.

Source: artpedia

Robert Mapplethorpe - Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1976. Photograph on paper From the Tate Gallery, London: The bodybuilder and budding actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger poses in a space rendered theatrical by a curtain that cuts the image at the top into two halves. The curve of the curtain to the left is echoed in Schwarzenegger’s pose – his extended right leg and curved right arm. It shows Mapplethorpe’s interest in the classical tradition with Schwarzenegger’s exceptionally muscular physique reminiscent of Michelangelo’s figures in the Sistine Chapel.
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Robert Mapplethorpe - Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1976. Photograph on paper

From the Tate Gallery, London:

The bodybuilder and budding actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger poses in a space rendered theatrical by a curtain that cuts the image at the top into two halves. The curve of the curtain to the left is echoed in Schwarzenegger’s pose – his extended right leg and curved right arm. It shows Mapplethorpe’s interest in the classical tradition with Schwarzenegger’s exceptionally muscular physique reminiscent of Michelangelo’s figures in the Sistine Chapel.

Source: fckyeaharthistory