Synopses & Reviews
Andy Warhol (1928andndash;1987) and Robert Mapplethorpe (1946andndash;1989) are well known for significant work in portraiture and self-portraiture that challenged gender roles and notions of femininity, masculinity, and androgyny. This exciting and original book is the first to consider the two artists together, examining the powerful portraits they created during the vibrant and tumultuous era bookended by the Stonewall riots and the AIDS crisis. Several important bodies of work are featured, including Warholandrsquo;s
Ladies and Gentlemen series of drag queen portraits and his collaboration with Christopher Makos on
Altered Image, in which Warhol was photographed in makeup and wigs, and Mapplethorpeandrsquo;s photographs of Patti Smith and of female body builder Lisa Lyon. These are explored alongside numerous other paintings, photographs, and films that demonstrate the artistsandrsquo; engagement with gender, identity, beauty, performance, and sexuality, including their own self-portraits and portraits of one another.
and#160;
Essays trace the convergences and divergences of Warhol and Mapplethorpeandrsquo;s work, and examine the historical context of the artistsandrsquo; projects as well as their lasting impact on contemporary art and queer culture. Firsthand accounts by the artistsandrsquo; collaborators and subjects reveal details into the making and exhibition of some of the works presented here. With an illustrated timeline highlighting key moments in the artistsandrsquo; careers, and more than 90 color plates of their arresting pictures, this book provides a fascinating study of two of the most compelling figures in 20th-century art.
Synopsis
A landmark examination of iconic and provocative portraits by Warhol and Mapplethorpe, presented side by side and in depth for the first time
Synopsis
What does it mean to look like a lesbian? Though it remains impossible to conjure a definitive image that captures the breadth of this highly nuanced term, today at least we are able to consider an array of visual representations that have been put into circulation by lesbians themselves over the last six or seven decades. In the early twentieth century, though, no notion of lesbianism as a coherent social or cultural identity yet existed.
In Women Together/Women Apart, Tirza True Latimer explores the revolutionary period between World War I and World War II when lesbian artists working in Paris began to shape the first visual models that gave lesbians a collective sense of identity and allowed them to recognize each other. Flocking to Paris from around the world, artists and performers such as Romaine Brooks, Claude Cahun, Marcel Moore, and Suzy Solidor used portraiture to theorize and visualize a "new breed" of feminine subject. The book focuses on problems of feminine and lesbian self-representation at a time and place where the rights of women to political, professional, economic, domestic, and sexual autonomy had yet to be acknowledged by the law. Under such circumstances, same-sex solidarity and relative independence from men held important political implications.
Combining gender theory with visual, cultural, and historical analysis, Latimer draws a vivid picture of the impact of sexual politics on the cultural life of Paris during this key period. The book also illuminates the far-reaching consequences of lesbian portraiture on contemporary constructions of lesbian identity.
Synopsis
This exciting and original book is the first to consider the work of Warhol and Mapplethorpe together, with a focus on their provocative portraits and self-portraits.
About the Author
Patricia Hickson is Emily Hall Tremaine Curator of Contemporary Art at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.