Robert Mapplethorpe

Above is the Powerpoint I presented for Robert Mapplethorpe, along with little notes in the description boxes for some slides.

it includes: Pictures of their stay at Chelsea Hotel, samples of Mapplethorpe’s work and his controversy involving his fascination with sadomasochism.

it is impossible to talk about the greatness of both Patti and Robert without mentioning the mutual influence they had on each others’ characters and careers.

Smith and Mapplethorpe started out as incidental friends, then lovers; and their relationship grew to something beyond and more intricate.

Patti was the one who pushed Mapplethorpe into photography, and when he picked it up, he focused on capturing a different standard of beauty at the time including female bodybuilders and explicit images of the human body.

Mapplethorpe founded the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation in 1988 to promote photography, support museums that exhibit photographic art, and to fund medical research in the fight against AIDS and HIV-related infection.

He later died in 1989 from AIDS.

Patti promised Mapplethorpe (the day before he died) that she would write a novel about their valuable relationship. 20 years later, here it is, in the form of “Just Kids.”