Mapplethorpe and the Flower: Radical Sexuality and the Limits of Control

Mapplethorpe and the Flower [reveals] rich and necessary reflections. * Revue Critique d'Art (Bloomsbury Translation) * It has been almost four decades since Kobena Mercer’s groundbreaking articles dealing with issues of blackness in Mapplethorpe’s photographs of black male bodies. Murray takes up where Mercer left off and significantly expands the conversation by powerfully arguing that Mapplethorpe’s flower works are not as distinct from those dealing explicitly with the body and issues of difference (racial and sexual). Indeed, he argues this divide has been partly brought about art historical methodologies that effectively cleave issues of form from issues of difference and vice versa. Through clear, cogent prose, Murray will leave readers stunned at what’s possible through his reimagination of art historical methodology: in this brilliant book, he powerfully outlines how issues of power and repression manifest themselves across the spectrum of Mapplethorpe’s body of work. I’ll never look at one of Mapplethorpe’s flower works the same way! * Alpesh Patel, Associate Professor of Art History, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, USA *