[DuncanWaring]

Brown and PBS find it unnecessary to discuss the objection that taxpayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize art that is obscene...

I don't even want to be forced to subsidize art that isn't obscene.

[CGASMIA68]

Mapplethorp did from HIV/AIDS.
Good

[billorites]

"self-portrait with a bullwhip us his anus."

Like nobody else regrets sharing a selfie on Facebook?

[Tax-chick]

Leftists always hide the details of “gay” activity. They’re like Moslems who consider themselves “vilified” when someone reads the text of the Koran.

[Rastus]

No pictures PLEASE.

[OldNewYork]

One gauge of where an ‘art-defender’s’ mind is really at is what they think about art they don’t like, and its treatment, such as The Triumph of Civic Virtue statue that once had prominent place in front of the Queens County Courthouse. And it’s so beyond ridiculous now after having been through all the arguments in New York about ‘art’ that was things like a crucifix in urine or a portrait of Mary the Mother of God defecated on, alongside this Mapplethorpe filth, and then seeing The NYT avoid art that depicted Mohammad, etc.

[Newbomb Turk]

Another HUGE waste of money robbed from the taxpayer.

[Daaave]

I remember when I first saw this guy’s work. The black and white photography was professional. But it was just a large penis next to a calla lily. Or some flower in a butt crack. Is this really noteworthy art that critics need to discuss?

[SuperLuminal]

Soon to hang on the White Hut wals.

[JoeProBono]

[Theodore R.]

A lot of the American people like Mapplethorp; do they know why they do?

[Gay State Conservative]

This pig died in the very hospital for which I worked for 20+ years.That hospital was *the* epicenter,in Boston,for AIDS patients back then thanks to certain contracts that were enacted between the hospital and the largest insurer in Greater Boston.This happened before AIDS became a nationwide issue.

In the 80's and into the 90's AIDS was an absolute death sentence and I saw more such patients than I care to recall.It was a very,*very* ugly death...a death that,one could argue,,most of them brought upon themselves.

And it seems to me that this pig deserved an ugly death more than most.

[Gay State Conservative]

Ten bucks says that *this* pig was a *real* teabagger.Among other things.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I didn’t see anything here regarding his connections with Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz.

At the time, there was a back story that Robert Mapplethorpe was working in conjunction with Berkowitz in some type of death cult/murder voyeur thing. Berkowitz even admitted it and provided details while in prison.

He later recanted and went back to the Son of Sam story line. But much of his Mapplethorpe testimony was supposedly verifiable.

[Glad2bnuts]

There was a movie/documentary on Showtime or HBO about the pictures of Maplethorpe.....

NO, I didn’t watch it all. There is no need to do so, I took the punishment for you.

[Billthedrill]

Hard to summon up a lot of sympathy for a fellow who committed a slow and nasty suicide from perverse sexual excess. PBS does no one, including the artist himself, any favors by Bowdlerizing the thing. Some boundaries, you push them too hard, they'll kill you, and so for Robert Mapplethorpe. A wealth of talent in a lost and weak vessel.

And he was talented. The guy could and did do more with a cheap Polaroid than most photographers do with hundred-thousand-dollar studios. The guy had the eye.

As far as not intending to shock, however, I don't think anyone can look at his work and say that with a straight face, not unless you regard a pose with a Thompson submachine gun in front of a large, wall-mounted pentagram to be soothing. Of course he meant to shock, with the same over-the-top immaturity that eventually killed him. If PBS can't bring themselves to admit that they're simply lying.

[exDemMom]

Mapplethorpe himself, this is his last self-portrait, died of AIDS, at age 42, just before the cultural tempest burst.

Hmm. AIDS can addle the brain. I wonder if that is the real cause of that "art."

[I want the USA back]

No wonder mapplethorp was loved so much by the left.

[wardaddy]

A good bit of Mapplethorpe is ok work BUT he was so dreary faggy

I prefer Helmut Newton erotica

RIP

[wardaddy]

Is geron l zotted

It would have been all over this