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Mapplethorpe, Robert (Photographer) & Shange, Ntozake (Contributor).
BLACK BOOK ("THE BLACK BOOK") .
New York City, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1986. Hardcover. First Edition/First Printing. 91 pages. Fine/Fine. The photographer's breakthrough collection of all-black male nudes. One of the greatest photography books of the 20th century. The true first. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly the Schirmer/Mosel 1999 Reissued Edition. A stunningly beautiful production by Robert Mapplethorpe and Dimitri Levas: Oversize-volume format in oblong shape. Handsome linen cloth boards with silver titles embossed on spine, as issued. Photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. Poem, "Bronze, Beautiful, and Mine", by Ntozake Shange, the great African-American writer. Printed on thick, semi-glossy stock paper to the very highest standards. In pictorial DJ with white titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents the most important photographic collection of nude black men ever assembled. Mapplethorpe had more than a thing for African-American men. Like many white Americans, blacks were the only men he found sexually attractive, and he aggressively sought them out wherever he could find them, following leads and tips from colleagues, friends, and "referrals" from his countless casual encounters. In their diversity, impact, subtlety, technical virtuosity, erotic appeal yet profound humanity, these photographs constitute a celebration of the black male that is unlikely to be surpassed. With the proliferation and increasing fusion of fashion, lifestyle, and "sex" in contemporary photography, it is easy to overlook Robert Mapplethorpe's overarching and now largely unacknowledged influence over The Way We Take Pictures Now. He himself was profoundly influenced by his more Classical predecessors and peers, who include Herbert List, George Platt Lynes, Alexey Brodovitch, Irving Penn, and Richard Avedon, among his predecessors; Peter Hujar and David Wojnarowicz, among his peers. Mapplethorpe's contribution is twofold: He gave the European style of his predecessors a distinctively American inflection and he pushed the photographic exploration of sexuality as far as humanly possible, towards an unflinching sado-masochism that remains difficult to watch and has lost none of its power to shock. This is somewhat a pity because it also means he will always be an acquired taste even (indeed, especially) among the most knowledgeable photography collectors. Because he achieved fame only towards the end of a career abruptly cut short by AIDS, many people think of Mapplethorpe as an Eighties icon. Although he began taking photographs in 1970, he remained a cult figure for the rest of his short life, achieved "breakthrough" status with "Black Book" (1986), then became unbelievably and notoriously world-famous, a cultural, not just a photographic, phenomenon, in 1988-89, when he fell ill with AIDS and died. A Mapplethorpe photograph is like the drawing or painting of a Master draftsman or artist: It is characterized by painstaking attention to detail, an impeccable eye, and an unerring sense of composition. The photographs are works achieved with the highest standards of artistic perfection and unsurpassed technical mastery. The Mapplethorpe "look" is both coolly iconic, sculptural, and geometric, and warmly transcendent, spiritual, and ethereal at the same time. A "must-have" title for Robert Mapplethorpe collectors. This title has been out-of-print as a hardcover for a very long time even though it went into multiple subsequent printings. This is one of few copies of the true First Edition still available online and is in fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Most copies online have serious flaws. A very scarce copy thus. 91 plates. One of the most provocative and important photographers of the 20th century. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0312083025. $200.00 |
