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Black Book
Mapplethorpe's brilliant and shocking Black Book was an immediate succes de scandale when it was first published in 1986. Ten years later, these powerful images of black men--many nude, some explicitly erotic--still stir controversy. This small-format version makes this notorious and beautifully accomplised portfolio available to a new and appreciative audience. 100 duotone photos.
- GenresArtPhotographyQueer
112 pages, Paperback
First published December 15, 1986
About the author
Robert Mapplethorpe
94 books60 followersRobert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and naked men. The frank, homosexually erotic nature of some of the work of his middle period triggered a more general controversy about the public funding of artworks.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 14, 2011
I'm on a Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe kick. This is Mapplethorpe's collection of African American men.
May 27, 2023
A technically brilliant celebration of racial fetishism, Mapplethorpe's work proves incredibly hard to critique. In this collection he masterfully directs the viewers' gaze to the things he finds notable about the Black male form: buttocks, penis, musculature, luminescent Black skin. In his own words he sought to convey Black men as the "Platonic ideal". What Mapplethorpe of course misses is that in the American imagination the Black male form has always been idealised, commodified and fragmented - all the things he does in his collection. However, I can't help but feel that people would critique this book much differently if they didn't know the identity of the person behind the camera.
Kobena Mercer has a really good analysis of the multiple ways the Black body is 'thingified' in Black Book as well as the way that the images could also be read as a genuine celebration of Blackness that might be received differently if it was perhaps a gay Black man behind the camera and Stuart Hall really drives home using the collection how complex the question of representation is. Just as there are images like "Man in a Polyester Suit" that crudely fixate on the mythical big black penis, there are also portraits of Black men in joy although few.
What is indisputable is Mapplethorpe's expertise, his eye for contrast, lighting and composition. However as Mercer points out:
The fantasmatic emphasis on mastery also underpins the specifically sexual fetishization of the Other that is evident in the visual isolation effect whereby it is only ever one Black man who appears in the field of vision at any one time
And broadly speaking being an artistic master does not give you license to exploit marginalised people. Thinking about Mapplethorpe selling prints of these pieces is quite sickening and demonstrates the broader ethical problems in photography that Susan Sontag pointed out.
May 18, 2021
Controversial like much of Mapplethorpe. A key text for all the wrong reasons: its graphic racist imagery. Mapplethorpe created much of present day photographic iconography and in that sense a vital book.
February 10, 2019
Amazing! 96 photos!
March 10, 2017
This is solidly Mapplethorpe and with many moments of brilliance. We the people having grown up (in theory) since the controversy, the impact is somewhat compromised. Groups of images make sense, but the collection lacks cohesion, "black" and "male" notwithstanding. The foreword is weirdly fetishistic.
I love 'Michael Hall, 1984' and 'Man in Polyester Suit, 1980'.
This miniature edition seems a bewildering and almost pointless choice by the publisher. Mapplethorpe is at his most expressive when the prints are large.
Something is glued between the front cover and title page of this copy. It's the size of a polaroid and says something like "Love, Sloane" but I can't get at it without destroying both the book and the object.
I love 'Michael Hall, 1984' and 'Man in Polyester Suit, 1980'.
This miniature edition seems a bewildering and almost pointless choice by the publisher. Mapplethorpe is at his most expressive when the prints are large.
Something is glued between the front cover and title page of this copy. It's the size of a polaroid and says something like "Love, Sloane" but I can't get at it without destroying both the book and the object.
July 25, 2012
Black Book was the first modern photographic collection to portray and celebrate the beauty of African American men. When published in 1986, it merely inflamed Mapplethorpe's already bad reputation with Ronald Reagan and the radically conservative Republican Party, who had been censoring him by withdrawing public NEA grants. The work has clear homoerotic content (yet is not in any way pornographic) but many feel that the deep-seated and unstated true political objections were racially based. Fortunately, as is always the case, censorship and controversy greatly enhanced Mapplethorpe's reputation, ensured continuing, well-deserved sales of the book, and cemented his place in cultural history.
If you can find the original large-scale edition you will appreciate the images much more. The broad expanses of dark ink on the pages, particularly in the backgrounds, contrasted with the detailed skin textures of the models, are photographic masterpieces. The miniature edition is just not large enough.
If you can find the original large-scale edition you will appreciate the images much more. The broad expanses of dark ink on the pages, particularly in the backgrounds, contrasted with the detailed skin textures of the models, are photographic masterpieces. The miniature edition is just not large enough.
August 30, 2012
beautifully executed male nude studies. One of Mapplethorpe's best.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews