Imagine my joy when I discovered that the Whitney Museum’s exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe’s Polaroids was arriving in the UK. And then I discovered it would be exhibiting in Oxford. Now I’m not selfish, and I understand that we can’t have EVERYTHING, but why-oh-why did an exhibition documenting my most favourite thing in the world (after Laduree macaroons…) have to be so far from London?
Tracing the use of early instant photography by the acclaimed photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, the exhibition presents over 90 Polaroids taken between 1970 and 1975. Mapplethorpe, who lived in New York with Patti Smith, first started shooting instant film when Sandy Daley lent him her Polaroid camera. Spontaneous, simple and intimate these early photographs contrast yet hint at the highly stylised and often controversial photographs Mapplethorpe would later become famous for.
If you can’t quite make it to Oxford, Syliva Wolf’s book Mapplethorpe: Polaroids is highly recommended…but is somehow not quite the same.
Polaroids: Mapplethorpe is at the Modern Art Oxford until September 13.
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