calendario eventi  :: 

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13/11/2013

Two exhibitions

Sean Kelly gallery, New York

Robert Mapplethorpe
Saints and Sinners

This December will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the landmark exhibition Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment. On the occasion of the anniversary of that defining juncture, not just in Mapplethorpe’s career, but also in the larger dialogue regarding freedom of expression in the arts, Sean Kelly brings together twenty-seven pairings of Mapplethorpe images exploring the theme of Saints and Sinners.

While some pairings in the exhibition may have more obvious connections, others are more ambiguous in their associations. The fifty-four images that comprise Saints and Sinners, some of which have rarely been exhibited, afford the viewer an opportunity to find personally meaningful connections in the work. Mapplethorpe himself deftly subverted any moral implications by presenting his subject matter in an objective, even classical manner, putting the onus on the viewer to draw their own conclusions.

Mapplethorpe’s Self-Portrait (1980) in drag is paired with a portrait of the singer and actress, Amanda Lear (1976) – two unique depictions of female sexuality. The profile of a marble sculpture of Ermes (1988) is shown next to a vanitas-like composition of a human skull (1988); the former perhaps represents an ideal of physical perfection whilst the latter reminds one of the realities of mortal existence. Bruce Mailman (1981) and Christopher Holly (1980) are, in different guises, potentially perceived as either playful or nefarious – in each case the viewer is called upon to decide the implications for themselves.

Together, the photographic pairings in Saints and Sinners offer the possibility of seemingly endless personal interpretations of the work and a fresh perspective on Mapplethorpe’s practice and his fearless contribution to contemporary photography.

Robert Mapplethorpe was born in 1946 in New York. He earned a B.F.A. from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he produced artwork in a variety of media, mainly collage. The shift to photography as Mapplethorpe’s sole means of expression happened gradually during the mid-1970s. He took his first photographs using a Polaroid camera, and later became known for his portraits of artists, architects, socialites, stars of pornographic films, members of the S&M community and an array of other characters many of whom were personal friends. During the early 1980s, his photographs shifted to emphasize classical formal beauty, concentrating on statuesque male and female nudes, flowers, still lifes and formal portraits. Mapplethorpe died from AIDS on March 9, 1989, in Boston, at age 42. Since that time, his work has been the subject of innumerable exhibitions throughout the world, including major museum traveling retrospectives.

Concurrently, Sean Kelly will present Slater Bradley: A Point Beyond the Tree.
Sean Kelly represents the Robert Mapplethorpe Estate in the Americas.

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Slater Bradley
A Point Beyond the Tree

Sean Kelly announces A Point Beyond the Tree, an exhibition by Slater Bradley that comprises new photographic works and a two-channel video installation.

The photographs in the exhibition belong to a series of intimate portraits of Alina, Bradley’s muse over a two-year period beginning in 2011, in which she is presented as his idealized woman. The images in A Point Beyond the Tree mark the culmination of that series. The works are manipulated, either dusted in palladium leaf or blocked out with marker, concealing any possible identifying references from the background, positioning the work outside a specific time or place. These labor-intensive works require Bradley to spend a great deal of time modifying the imagery, thence reconnecting himself to the original fleeting moment captured in the photograph. For Bradley, the images suggest themes of longing, loss and unconditional love.

Alina is also featured in Sequoia, a two-channel video that will be installed in the lower gallery. The film includes footage from Chris Marker’s La Jetée, the 1962 French science fiction film, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo from 1958, and Bradley’s 2013 homage to the Marker film, she was my la jetée. In Sequoia, Bradley builds on a series of references, isolating a dialogue in Marker’s film that is based on a scene in Vertigo in which the two main characters look at a display of the cross section of a sequoia tree, whose rings are used as a historical timeline. In Marker’s film, the protagonist has traveled back through time to seek out the woman with whom he has become obsessed, explaining to her that he comes from “a point beyond the tree”. The mirrored sequences from the two iconic films are interwoven with footage of Bradley’s muse – his la jetée – shot in super 8 to suggest a timeless quality. Bradley employs a freeze frame technique in replaying both his footage and the Vertigo sequence to closely mimic the still photographs of Marker’s film, further conflating the individual films and underscoring his interest in blurring the boundaries between photography and the moving image.

Using experiences unfolding in the present day of his own life, Bradley explores the universal narrative of lost love through his photographic and video works. A Point Beyond the Tree presents a focused view on these deeply personal reflections.

Slater Bradley’s work is in the permanent collection of numerous institutions, including: the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the UBS Collection, Zurich, Switzerland; and the Jumex Collection, Mexico City, Mexico. Currently, Bradley is the subject of a solo exhibition on view through December 22nd, at the Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. His video, Female Gargoyle, is part of a group exhibition, City of Disappearances, on view through December 14th at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco.

Image: Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon, 1982 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission.

For media inquiries, please contact:
Katrina Weber Ashour at FITZ & CO at 212.627.1455 or via email at katrina@fitzandco.com

Opening reception: December 13, 6-8pm

Sean Kelly Gallery
475 Tenth Avenue New York NY 10018
open Tuesday - Friday, 11am to 6pm and Saturdays from 10am to 6pm.

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