Pictures brings together for the first time in Portuguese art historian Jonathan K. Nelson’s most comprehensive overview of Robert Mapplethorpe’s work and a short yet insightful foreword his close friend Susan Sontag wrote upon the artist’s express request. The exquisite binding of this extensively illustrated coffee-table book translates Mapplethorpe’s pleasure in the tactile that led him to the pioneering use of non-photographic materials.
The catalogue section follows the chronological order, with occasional exceptions to highlight kinships and/or for aesthetical reasons. |