This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast features Los Angeles County Museum of Art curator Britt Salvesen and artist Catherine Opie on the occasion of LACMA’s presentation of three Robert Mapplethorpe portfolios: The ‘X Portfolio,’ which features sadomasochistic imagery; the ‘Y Portfolio’ of floral still-lifes and the ‘Z Portfolio’ of nude portraits African-American men.
These two Mapplethorpes, both titled Pictures/Self Portrait (1977), aren’t in the X, Y or Z Portfolio and thus aren’t in LACMA’s show. They were included in a 2004 exhibition Opie selected from the holdings of the Mapplethorpe Foundation. On this week’s MAN Podcast, Opie and I discussed these two pictures — and both Opie and I and Salvesen discussed whether Mapplethorpe’s experience with Catholicism helped motivate them.
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