MAPPLETHORPE: LOOK AT THE PICTURES (Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato). 108 minutes. Opens Wednesday (January 18) at Jackman Hall (AGO). See listing. Rating: NNN
The inaugural selection in the AGOs Art On Screen series looks at the pictures and life of Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989), the American photographer whose most controversial work prompts us to renovate our thinking about the body as a site of erotic transaction.
Mapplethorpe produced an astonishing range of material in his short life. He was essentially a portraitist, though his subjects could just as easily be flowers as celebrities or lovers Mapplethorpe encountered in BDSM circles.
Any documentary profile could be forgiven for being unable to encompass his entire legacy, but Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbatos made-for-HBO film, with its boilerplate score, humdrum visual style and dearth of cultural context, falls too short of its goals to recommend.
The most revelatory facet of Look At The Pictures is what you hear: Bailey and Barbato accessed a trove of audio recordings in which Mapplethorpe discusses himself with disarming frankness. Theres a danger, though, in assuming that such artifacts necessarily offer the most authentic representation.
Like most artists, Mapplethorpe cultivated a persona, and his words should be balanced by those of others, including Patti Smith, whose wonderful book Just Kids chronicles their friendship and whose participation in Look At The Pictures was conspicuously minimal.
Other selections in the Art On Screen series look more promising, especially Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art, Cave Small Cave Big and Burden.
