Think of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs and you might think of classical nudes, flower studies, celebrity portraits and S&M pictures. But an exhibition opening on Friday 18 November (until 7 January) at London’s Alison Jacques Gallery, curated by the German photographer Juergen Teller, reveals a very different side to the New York artist’s oeuvre.
Mapplethorpe’s world, according to Teller, is one inhabited by animals—a kitten nestled in a sofa, a plate of frogs—and there are still lifes featuring antique silver cutlery or a pair of coconuts. There are also less-often photographed subjects including the German-born photographer Gisèle Freund and the US actress Susan Sarandon’s daughter Eva Amurri.
“It struck me to find Mapplethorpe’s gentler and more romantic side,” says Teller, who selected 58 images from the Mapplethorpe Foundation collection in New York to create the exhibition, which starts a fortnight after what would have been the artist’s 70th birthday.
“I didn’t want to include the super-famous celebrity pictures because that would have been boring, and I didn’t want to have a black-leather S&M room because that’s been done before. It’s about creating something new,” Teller says.
Nonetheless, Mapplethorpe’s regulars make an appearance. The singer and artist Patti Smith, the curator and collector Sam Wagstaff, and the artist and model David Croland all feature. Croland’s gagged face has been blown up over four metres high and pasted onto the wall facing out from the gallery.
One of Mapplethorpe’s best-known homoerotic images, Fist Fuck/Double (1978), is also included. Owing to its popularity, the print is the most expensive on show, priced at $75,000. On average, the works hover around the $10,000 to $20,000 mark.
“Like many pricing structures where editions are involved, the prices increase as the edition sells out,” says the gallery owner Alison Jacques. “Because most of the works on show are relatively unknown, there are more editions available, and the starting point of $10,000 is possible. It’s a fantastic opportunity for younger or new collectors to acquire a Mapplethorpe.”
Jacques, who has represented Mapplethorpe’s estate in the UK for 17 years, says that Teller was the “only choice” to curate the exhibition, adding that there are “obvious parallels” between the two photographers, who are both known for being provocative and subversive.
Teller first saw Mapplethorpe’s work as a teenager in Germany, listening to Patti Smith’s 1975 album, Horses, for which Mapplethorpe shot the cover. More than a decade later, Teller bought Man in Polyester Suit (1980), a portrait of Mapplethorpe’s lover Milton Moore with his penis exposed, for $25,000 to $30,000. Another print of the same subject sold at Sotheby’s last year for $478,000. “Mine was from a portfolio, but it was still very cheap,” Teller says.
Teller also bought Cock and Devil (1982), which is on show in the London gallery. “Mapplethorpe nailed it with this work; it is brutal and honest,” he says. “Throughout his career he was ruthless. He photographed what he wanted to photograph and that's what I find really inspiring.”