Robert Mapplethorpe
[Photographer, b. 1946, Floral Park, Long Island, d. 1989, Boston, Massachusetts.]
I was a Catholic boy, I went to church every Sunday. A church has a certain magic and mystery for a child. It still shows in how I arrange things. It’s always little altars.
I wasn’t setting out to make a statement, that isn’t the way I work. The statement grows out of what I do.
I never really wanted to be [a photographer] in art school; it wasn’t a high enough art form at that point. But then I realized that all kinds of things can be done within the context of photography, and it was also the perfect medium, or so it seemed, for the seventies and eighties, when everything was fast. If I were to make something that took weeks to do, I’d lose my enthusiasm. It would become an act of labor and the love would be gone.
I think there’s two things: taking pictures, or making art, and then there’s life. I would like to think that life comes first, and that though the art is what remains, the experience of the people, the communication in taking the pictures, is more important to me than the end product. Having an interesting life is more important to me than making interesting photographs.
There’s a sense of humor in what I’m doing that I hope people would hook up on.
Even when my assistants do virtually all the work the picture still has me in it.
Street photography doesn’t interest me at all. I tried things, twice, but I felt so uncomfortable taking a camera out in the street—it’s sneaky somehow.
I don’t know why my pictures come out looking so good. I just don’t get it.
