Mapplethorpe and ... Rodin?

How times have changed. The latest exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris assembles photographs of flowers, cocks, pussies, nudes, revealing self-portraits, formal portraits of socialites and well-known actors. Robert Mapplethorpe, the photographer who unlocked the world of LGBT, homosexuality, underground bondage, sadomasochism and triggered a national debate about the funding of art with tax dollars, is now considered fashionable by thousands of visitors eager to look at the two hundred and fifty photographs. Controversial in the eighties, they appear quite tame with themes now discussed freely in the media and have lost their aura of taboo subjects. Anyway, who has not seen somewhere Mapplethorpe's photographs, or their reproductions? At the entrance, the iconic portrait of the artist with his piercing gaze and his cane decorated with a skull, defies death and also the visitors who plunge in the exhibition to discover the artist's  mostly black and white world. The hottest area is off limit to underage visitors due to scenes of deviant sexual acts involving leather, whips, chains and the display ends with a homey Polaroid series of the photographer and his friends. The exhibition appears to emphasize the "aesthetic for aesthetic's sake" side of the artist, shrinking his legacy... till one discovers Mapplethorpe across the Seine at the Musée Rodin, near the Ecole Militaire.

The Musée Rodin presents an exquisite exhibition of more than one hundred of Mapplethorpe's photographs next to Rodin's sculptures creating a dialogue between the two artists and offers a new vision of both in a well choreographed display starting with a short introduction in the hall leading to the main room. A sample of works annotated with short comments distinguishes Mapplethorpe working on forms from Rodin searching for movement. From there on, the exhibition highlights the correspondence between the two masters in labelled areas: "movement and tension" illustrated by sculptures like "Bronze Age" and  "Walking Man" (prominently displayed at the New Orleans Museum of Art) and the headless photograph of Michael Reed, 1987, "assemblages and compositions" a display of still-life photographs of flowers mixed with "Floral Souls" from Rodin followed by "eroticism and damnation" eroticized views of body parts by both artists, although Rodin favored hands, feet and Mapplethorpe with close-ups of neck, umbilicus, sexual parts including the picture of a kitten. The representation of details, an obsession for both artists culminates in the "draperies", where "Les Bourgeois de Calais" inspires the pose for a photograph of a live model's wrapped bust. Along the visit, one starts looking with a renewed interest at the three-dimensional compositions created by the play of shadows and lights, sculpting corpses, muscles, skin, highlighting anatomical parts and details of flowers and discovers the sculptor in Mapplethorpe. In their works, the two artists internalize the beauty of the flesh  and their search for an aesthetic perfection engenders spirituality.
Mapplethorpe may have read these lines from the sculptor:
"The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble"...Auguste Rodin



no photographs allowed at the exhibitions
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The High...

... is the Museum of Art in Atlanta. Named after the High family who donated the land on Peachtree Street. The High is located in Midtown and is easy to spot: a congregation of white buildings added over the years.

Richard Meyer (1934), who favors the color white, designed a 135,000-square-foot building in 1983. Two new buildings were added in 2002 to expand the museum's size to 312,000 square feet. The architect for this project is Renzo Piano (1937).

The color white is the only common feature between the buildings. The curvy building from Meyer otherwise clashes with the angulous shapes from Renzo Piano. Piano's style, who built the Menil Collection in Houston, is recognizable, but due to its scale, the buildings looks like vast, windowless, graceless hangars. The one level museum in Houston, also white, has a mediterranean flavor and the system of panels to filter the sunlight brings an extra nautical or aerial touch. Adding to the coldness of the High is the grey cement courtyard as opposed to the fresh green lawn in Houston.


Walking through the entrance, the visitor is surprised by the brightness of the surroundings and the vast space of the atrium which spreads from the first floor to the skyway level, white with a touch of blue through the glass ceiling (the day of the visit).

At each level, balconies overlook the central area, and a gently inclined walkway brings the visitors to the different levels.

The three buildings (the Stent Wing, the Wieland Pavillion, the Anne Cox Chambers Wing) are connected by glass bridges.

To the left, "Mouth #15" Tom Wesselman, 1968

There is no shortage of space for the permanent exhibition. Large walls and wood floors, the setting is ideal. However, the visit was short due to the lack of interesting collections. European, American paintings, sculptures, crystal, furnitures...the collections are sparse and made of minor works .

The goal of my visit was to see the temporary exhibition "Dali: The Late Work". The works were crammed on the walls or in the corners. The rooms were packed, full of visitors brought by this unique exhibition showing some rarely seen works. They were unable to take the few steps back and forth necessary to appreciate the visual effects of some of the paintings (for example: "Fifty Abstract Paintings") and feel the full impact of the monumental compositions like "Santiago El Grande". The temporary exhibition was not given the space it deserves.

The High has a lot of space, what about the content?

"The Shade" a sculpture from Rodin is a gift from the french governement to the High. 106 Atlanta arts patrons who died in an airplane crash at Orly airport in Paris in 1962.

"House III" Roy Lichtenstein, 1997 decorates the side of Meier's building.



photographs by the author