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Summary: very good book
Review: artistic and powerful, i recommend it
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Summary: They killed trees for this!
Review: I cannot beleive they chopped down living trees, ground their flesh, treated them with bleach and caustic chemicals which eventually are drained into the environment to pollute our mother earth and poison our waters just to produce pressed paper to print this filthy book. I thought I had a strong stomach. After this, I can stand anything. Stand back! I need air!
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Summary: Art Or Trash? The Book Which Will Decide Your Vote!
Review: Probably the most reviled book at Amazon because of its sexual explictness of the "out there" gay life led before AIDS, complete with bondage, S&M and even torture. Yet Mapplethorpe was artist enough to make many of the images compelling and haunting plus horrific yet eye/heart stopping. There are even self portraits of Mapplethorpe at the height of his own physical beauty before he too would be ravaged and killed by AIDS. I come down solidly on the side of the "This is art" contenders but caution you that this book is not for the rigid, the squeamish or minors. Mapplethorpe captured an extreme moment in time, when controversial sexual behavior came out to the public and shoved itself in the public's face, clamoring to be viewed and defying us to look away. I, for one, could not look away.
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Summary: A thought-provoking collection of Mapplethorpe's sex picture
Review: This collection of pictures is bound in a good quality cover and printed on a glossy paper of reasonable quality.The images themselves are, in the main, sex pictures; S&M pictures; and a few portraits. The sex pictures are quite grotesque, concentrating as they do on the pain, blood, urine, bondage and so on. Whether you'll enjoy these depends on your view of the subject. Personally, I didn't find them uplifting or illuminating. The models were sullen, looked unhappy, or downright sad: but then I suppose if your... has been nailed to a plank you're entitled to be a little shaken! The few portraits included in this volume were entirely unpleasing, and not representative of Mapplethorpe's better work. They offered no real insight ot the subjects, who remained cold and aloof, detached it seems from the process of making art. This is a collection of many of Mapplethorpe's more 'sensational' and 'shocking' images. Whether you are affronted or not they do deserve inspection, if only to see what the 'conservatives' tried to ban. You might actually feel repulsed and agree that these pictures are not art but pornography.
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Summary: Another Posthumous success, whether you like it or not!
Review: This is a fabulous collection of the very subject matter that turned the art world on end. These pictures, however explicit and extreme in subject matter push the more important issue of artistic freedom. Without this freedom we all suffer. Censorship has somehow told us that we can be harmed by the images we look at...more harmful is the forced conformity that ensues when creativity is left for others to decide what is or isn't done in the name of artistic freedom. Having left his flowers and portraits in their own respective niches, his artistic freedom rings clear as a bell with this collection.
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Summary: mapplethorpe's greatest work
Review: this is the book that all mapplethorpe fans have secretly and not-so-secretly been waiting for...his toughest,grittiest and most lovingly made photographs taken in the space of a few years before fame and, in my opinion, decline. some of these photos have been seen in other anthologies of his work, but arena editions boldly offers 100 views of leather and sex in a volume of unsurpassed quality. the best reproductions of the photographer's work i have seen. this is difficult work to view, but this book is essential for mapplethorpe fans and photography aficionados. why? because this is the body of work that matters when the great photographers line up and are counted. do beware!! the images in this book are unsuitable viewing for all minors, and most adults. buy it!!
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Summary: One word: Ouch
Review: You can always debate whether this book is "art" or not, but the fact is I am worried about what happened to some of the subjects. Helmut? Are you okay? I think Mapplethorpe wanted to shock, and he did, but I found the pictures had too much pain in them to be appreciated. I was deadened to what Mapplethorpe wanted to say, if he wanted to say anything at all. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
Rating:
Summary: One word: Ouch
Review: You can always debate whether this book is "art" or not, but the fact is I am worried about what happened to some of the subjects. Helmut? Are you okay? I think Mapplethorpe wanted to shock, and he did, but I found the pictures had too much pain in them to be appreciated. I was deadened to what Mapplethorpe wanted to say, if he wanted to say anything at all. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
Rating:
Summary: One word: Ouch
Review: You can always debate whether this book is "art" or not, but the fact is I am worried about what happened to some of the subjects. Helmut? Are you okay? I think Mapplethorpe wanted to shock, and he did, but I found the pictures had too much pain in them to be appreciated. I was deadened to what Mapplethorpe wanted to say, if he wanted to say anything at all. Ouch, ouch, ouch.
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