October 7, 2015

"The decidedly not-safe-for-work image, which cannot be reproduced here, can be easily found through a search engine."

Sentence in a NYT article about the sale at auction of a Robert Mapplethorpe photograph for $478,000. The photo, "Man in Polyester Suit," was part of an exhibition for which Mapplethorpe was criminally prosecuted in 1990.

22 comments:

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Weiner should have sold his photos instead of giving them away.

Once written, twice... said...

The Hillbillies hate Maplethorpe.

madAsHell said...

I'm gonna need a bigger fist to punch that guy in the dick.

Titus said...

hot

Gahrie said...

But Renoir is the one taking all the shit.....

Michael K said...

Gays have lots of money and bad taste. Connection !

Will Cate said...

Oh great. Now that's on my Google search history. No telling what kind of web ads I'm gonna be seeing now.

BN said...

Inflicting King Google on "the innocent." I am so screwed now. The perfesser wins again.

Freeman Hunt said...

Decidedly? You could wear that suit to work.

sean said...

If only it had been displayed on a university campus. Prof. Althouse's students would have complained because it's phallocentric and oppressive and they didn't get a trigger warning. Prof. Althouse's colleagues would have supported the student complaint, until they learned that the photograph is by a gay man, and is intended to annoy Christians. Then they would have supported displaying the photo, and returned to their usual business of banning Ovid. That's the contemporary university, in a nutshell.

BN said...

"The Hillbillies hate Maplethorpe."

Lol... Giggle... Giggle... Lol. Yeah, the hillbillies are always talkin bout Maplewarped.

Good one.

T J Sawyer said...

Journalism: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How

I didn't see any "who" in the story in addition to leaving out the picture of the "WHAT?"

Who's the model?

Who bought it?

All Maplethorpe did was take a picture.

Oso Negro said...

Feh. Maplethorpe is part of the curriculum in California public schools. The Episcopalians have a Maplethorpe illustrated edition of the New Testament

YoungHegelian said...

The national Gallery of Art in DC really has some kick-ass Christmas cards & each year I go down & buy some to send to my Christian business clients at Christmas.

Of course, the Gallery gift shop wants to be "with it", and has quite a selection of Mapplethorpe photos as cards. Always, of course, the very-much tamer stuff.

Each year, when I buy my Christmas cards, I grab a Mapplethorpe set too, & go up to the register and ask the cashier if they've got a card of the photo by Mapplethorpe of the one guy jamming his pinky up the penis of the other guy. Strangely enough, they never do, and they don't seem to want to hear about it, either.

Art people are so uptight, I tell ya.

Birkel said...

If Renoir made bad art, then there may be no English words to describe Maplethorpe's ________.

Maybe garbage works.

Mary Beth said...

Each year, when I buy my Christmas cards, I grab a Mapplethorpe set too, & go up to the register and ask the cashier....

I suspect the veracity of this, but if you are the type of person who harasses cashiers over things out of their control, stop it.

Virgil Hilts said...

Another topical Halloween costume possibility (unless your circumcised).

lgv said...

Mapplethorpe, the Renoir of photography.

TrespassersW said...

Mapplethorpe may have been a technically brilliant photographer, but his choice of subject matter reveals a diseased moral core.

Wince said...

"You see because to preclude on the issue of world domination would only circumvent - excuse me, circumcise the revelation that reflects the 'Afro-disiatic' symptoms which now perpetrates the Jheri Curl activation."

Bill said...

That photo came to mind when I read Mr Sammler's Planet a few years back.

James said...

A small correction--it wasn't Mapplethorpe who was criminally prosecuted, it was the director of the Cincinnati Museum that displayed them. They're having s symposium to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the even this month.