Mark Holborn, Dimitri Levas, Herbert Muschamp - Flora : les fleurs de Mapplethorpe - 2016

Mapplethorpe Flora: The Flowers of Mapplethorpe gathers the ultimate collection of flowers photographs by the highly influential Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989), with nearly two hundred and eighty images that trace the artist's inalterable fascination with the subject, from the very first Polaroids to the black-and-white prints that are so stylized. Designed in close collaboration with the Mapplethorpe Foundation, the book Flora: The Flowers of Mapplethorpe is published by Phaidon. While Mapplethorpe is known for his nude studies and portraits of celebrities such as Patti Smith or Grace Jones, his flower photographs also occupied a significant place in his work, a subject he photographed with extraordinary constancy from 1973 until his death in 1989. Mapplethorpe received his first Polaroid camera in 1971, a tool with which he learned to master light and exposure by photographing flowers and floral arrangements in his New York loft or by doing studies at friends' homes. His deep knowledge of the history of the floral motif in painting and his meticulously constructed compositions allowed him to renew the aesthetics and perception of a traditional and familiar subject. In Mapplethorpe's gaze, flowers could be beautiful, decadent, dark and erotic. Shortly before his death, Mapplethorpe sent friends a print of a photograph of bent tulips on a black vase, as a keepsake to remember him. Mapplethorpe photographed roses, orchids, irises, birds of paradise, tulips and many other common or rare species. The book shows the diversity of his compositions, from the dark effect of a lily photographed through light shining across a horizontal blind, to the simplicity of daffodils in a glass bottle placed on a table. The work also shows the different photographic formats Mapplethorpe used, including film, Polaroid, dye-transfer, or heliogravure. The compositions also reveal his unusual collections of Swedish porcelain vases or Murano glass, as well as American artisan ceramics. Flora: The Flowers of Mapplethorpe is introduced by two fascinating essays. The first, unpublished, is signed by Dimitri Levas, New York art director and Mapplethorpe’s longtime friend with whom he worked for years on these still lifes. Levas recounts with a precious sense of detail the mode of operation of their collaboration, from buying the flowers at the market to the setups he prepared for the shoots. Herbert Muschamp (1947-2007), former architecture critic for the New York Times, contributes an essay on the artistic context of the New York of the 1970s, the symbolism of the flower in art history, and Mapplethorpe’s place within it. The book, edited and designed by Mark Holborn and Dimitri Levas, comprises more than 275 bicolor and color photographs grouped by the different botanical species. It constitutes a new edition of The Complete Flowers, enriched with a selection of newly added images and Levas’s essay, which had never before been published. The exhibition “Robert Mapplethorpe: XYZ curated by Peter Marino” at Thaddeus Ropac Gallery in Paris from January 28 to March 5, precedes the publication of the book. A retrospective of the artist’s work will be shown simultaneously at the Getty and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) from March to July 2016. The exhibition will continue its tour at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.