The notorious photographs of the late Robert Mapplethorpe are up on the public walls again, but this time in an exhibition far more intelligent than controversial.
The show is called “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” it’s up through July 30 at the Baltimore Museum of Art (Art Museum Drive; 410-396-7100), and Mapplethorpe’s work is paired with that of the great California photographer Edward Weston.
They were markedly different men but quite similar in many of their photographic approaches to art. The exhibition is a comparison of the two, with pictures by each on a common theme or subject hanging side by side.
This juxtaposition produces some remarkable similarities. Weston’s pensive 1933 portrait of his elegant friend Alice Rohmer, for example, seems a mate to Mapplethorpe’s 1980 study of the glamorous Paloma Picasso. Ditto for Weston’s 1924 shot of a dapper Rafael Sala, hanging next to Mapplethorpe’s 1983 picture of an aesthetic Andy Warhol.
Both men were sensualists, but their differing sexual orientation is markedly evident. Weston, a heterosexual with many mistresses, expressed this eroticism with images of female nudes, and even sensual looking peppers and other vegetables. Mapplethorpe, an avowed homosexual, chose male nudes. When both photographed orchids, Weston’s looks decidedly female, in the manner of Georgia O’Keeffe’s flower paintings. Mapplethorpe’s flower is very male.
The exhibition is worth the visit just for one picture: Weston’s 1939 “Nude Floating.” It defines bliss, and eternity.
Nadar in NYC
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (1000 5th Ave.; 212-879-5500) is staging one of the most magnificent photography exhibitions of all time: “Nadar,” a career retrospective of some of the best and most interesting images taken by the great 19th Century French photographer (also journalist, caricaturist, boulevardier and balloonist) Felix Tournachon (1820-1910).
Taking the name Nadar during the decade he spent as a photographer (1854 to 1865), Tournachon was a pioneer who thrilled the French public with startling pictures of sewers and skull-filled catacombs as well as brilliant portraits of some of the most celebrated figures of the day.
Poet Charles Baudelaire’s likeness is among the 100 prints in this show. Also making appearances are authors Alexandre Dumas and George Sand (she looks not at all as fetching as actress Judy Davis, who played her in the film “Impromptu”). There’s a picture of the legendary actress Sarah Bernhardt taken at the dewy starlet age of 22, and she looks absolutely ravishing.
This is the only American venue for this show, which closes July 9. Most of these pictures have never been exhibited in the United States before.
– Two other exhibitions to see in New York this summer: “Batiste Madalena,” a collection of the flamboyant artist Madalena’s unforgettable American movie posters from the 1920s, including those for “Quo Vadis,” “Lilac Time,” “Loves of Carmen” and “While the City Sleeps,” at the Hirschl & Adler Galleries (21 E. 70th St.; 212-535-8810) and “Edward Hopper and the American Cinema,” a show at the Whitney Museum (945 Madison Ave.; 212-570-3676), which dwells on the film noir aspects of the painter’s work, most famously represented in his classic “Nighthawks.” The exhibition, which also explores the influence Hopper had on movies, such as “Laura” and “The Godfather,” runs June 22 to Aug. 13. “Batiste” closes Aug. 18.
D.C. specials
In addition to its fabulous James McNeill Whistler show, which closes Aug. 20, Washington’s National Gallery of Art (4th Street and Constitution Avenue, Northwest; 202-737-4215) has two other major exhibitions up. One, running through Sept. 4, is a 171-piece career retrospective of the influential modern artist Piet Mondrian, who seemed to view the universe and perhaps even the Meaning of Life as an assemblage of squares and rectangles. The other, closing Sept. 17, is “Arshile Gorky: The Breakthrough Years,” dealing with the surrealist’s 1941-1948 adventures into Abstract Expressionism.
Across the Washington Mall from the National Gallery, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum (202-357-2700) is staging through Sept. 4 “Flight Time Barbie,” or what you might call Barbie Doll in Space. On display are 56 play toys with an aviation or space theme, including 15 Barbies and 19 assorted aliens and flight companions. Among the Barbies are a 1961 stewardess Barbie, a 1994 astronaut Barbie, and–inspired by the Persian Gulf War–a 1993 101st Airborne Division Barbie, accompanied by a Ken doll in matching Airborne togs. Somehow, one doubts either of these ever turned up in a real 101st Airborne trooper’s footlocker.
(Note: From now through Labor Day, the Smithonian’s Air and Space Museum, the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of Natural History will be open an extra hour: from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. For information on all Smithsonian museums, call 202-357-2700; for the hearing impaired, TTY 202-357-1729; in Spanish, 202-633-9126).
And elsewhere . . .
Ft. Worth’s Amon Carter Musem (3501 Camp Bowie Blvd.; 817-738-1933) has acquired and put on display Frederic Remington’s heroic bronze sculpture “The Mountain Man,” bringing its collection of Remington sculptures to 10.
– From now through Sept. 3, Ft. Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum (3333 Camp Bowie Blvd.; 817-332-8451) is exhibiting a delightful variety of treasures from its permanent collection, including Francisco de Goya’s 1798 “The Matador Pedro Romero,” El Greco’s 1614 “Portrait of an Eclesiastic” and Paul Cezanne’s 1897 “Man in a Blue Smock.”
– If you missed the Chicago Art Institute’s wonderful spring show of works by French Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte–famous for the Institute’s much-cherished 1877 “Paris Street; Rainy Day”–it reopens June 22 and runs through Sept. 10 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (5905 Wilshire Blvd.; 213-857-6000).
