Top 69 Mapplethorpe Quotes
#1. Robert Mapplethorpe, I met in 1967. He was a student at Pratt, though even as a student a fully formed artist. We went through many things in our life together. He became my loved one, then my best friend.
Patti Smith
#2. Robert Mapplethorpe asked me to write our story the day before he died. I had never written a book of nonfiction, and so it took me almost two decades to write that book.
Patti Smith
#3. From childhood my mother had me examining Robert Mapplethorpe's style and Egon Schiele's framing - that's what modelling is about.
Milla Jovovich
#4. He found it was as easy to hurl beauty as anything else. (On Robert Mapplethorpe)
Patti Smith
#5. Like Robert Mapplethorpe, Helmut Newton, and so many others before me, sexual imagery has always been a part of my photography.
Terry Richardson
#6. It got to the point where I started hiding because I didn't want to be photographed. (On living with Robert Mapplethorpe)
Patti Smith
#7. Mapplethorpe presented the body as a sexual object, separating it from the humanity of the person. He added nothing to photography as a medium. I hold his work in low regard.
Jerzy Kosinski
#8. Your work, coming from a fluid source, can be traced to the naked song of your youth. You spoke then of holding hands with God. Remember, through everything, you have always held that hand, grip it hard, Robert, and don't let go.
(letter to Robert Mapplethorpe, 1970)
Patti Smith
#9. Of course, in the end, when Mapplethorpe turned out to be very gay, Smith was left with no other option than to go off and write Horses and grow the world's most influential lady mustache instead. Her hand was forced into productivity.
Caitlin Moran
#10. Obviously there was Keith Haring and Robert Mapplethorpe, but Howard was on the brink of becoming a famous director - it didn't happen because he died.
Aaron Brookner
#11. I don't think that there's that much difference between a photograph of a fist up someone's ass and a photograph of carnations in a bowl.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#12. If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#13. We learned we wanted too much. We could only give from the perspective of who we were and what we had. Apart, we were able to see with even greater clarity that we didn't want to be without each other.
Patti Smith
#14. You're never going to get anywhere in life if you don't live up to your obligations.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#15. I never liked photography. Not for the sake of photography. I like the object. I like the photographs when you hold them in your hand.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#16. Sell the public flowers ... things that they can hang on their walls without being uptight.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#17. I see things like they've never been seen before. Art is an accurate statement of the time in which it is made.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#19. People have done pornographic pictures forever, but most of the people who involve themselves in explicit sexuality aren't really artists.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#20. My theory about creativity is that the more money one has, the more creative one can be.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#21. The best picture I got was Bianca Jagger whispering in Mick's ear. I caught them telling a secret, which is sort of rude.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#22. I am obsessed with beauty. I want everything to be perfect, and of course it isn't. And that's a tough place to be because you're never satisfied.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#26. I would never have done what I'd done if I'd considered my father as somebody I wanted to please.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#27. The photographs that are art have to be separated from the rest - then preserved.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#28. I always thought I was good. That's why it was so frustrating when other people didn't agree.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#30. My lifestyle is bizarre, but the only thing you need to know is where the darkroom is.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#31. I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#36. I became the toast of London. A lot of people I met came from these really decadent families where the married men were gay and no one thought anything about it.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#37. Whenever you make love to someone, there should be three people involved - you, the other person, and the devil.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#38. I played around with the flowers and the lighting, so that was a good way to educate myself.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#41. 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.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#42. With photography, you zero in; you put a lot of energy into short moments, and then you go on to the next thing.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#44. I don't know why my pictures come out looking so good. I just don't get it.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#47. I can't have just anybody assisting me, I need somebody who I can really communicate with.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#49. I should try to get some sleep as one doesn't know what tomorrow may bring.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#50. I don't believe in dogmas and theologies. I just believe in being a good person.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#52. When I have sex with someone I forget who I am. For a minute I even forget I'm human. It's the same thing when I'm behind a camera. I forget I exist.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#55. I don't use recreational drugs, except for cocaine, hallucinogens, and nitrates.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#56. I went into photography because it seemed like the perfect vehicle for commenting on the madness of today's existence.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#58. People don't have time to wait for somebody to paint their portraits anymore. The money is in photography.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#59. My work is about seeing - seeing things like they haven't been seen before.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#60. If I had been born one or two hundred years ago, I might have been a sculptor, but photography is a very quick way to see, to make sculpture.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#61. I come from suburban America. It was a very safe environment and it was a good place to come from in that it was a good place to leave.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#62. If I am at a party, I want to be at the party. Too many photographers use the camera to avoid participating in things. They become professional observers.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#66. Just because I was out at the bars all the time didn't mean I wasn't looking for someone to love.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#67. I'm not photographing anything naked these days. I haven't been concentrating on bodies recently.
Robert Mapplethorpe
#68. I think that it was a great advantage to go into photography not knowing much about it. Not thinking. I think one of the problems with many photographers today is that they never see for themselves, but just like everybody else ...
Robert Mapplethorpe
#69. I don't like that particular word 'shocking.' I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before ... I was in a position to take those pictures. I felt an obligation to do them.
Robert Mapplethorpe
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