The Black Book Book

A classic, indeed perhaps the best of the Mapplethorpebooks. And for many most certainly the mosttypical Mapplethorpe, now available once againthanks to this re-edition.The Black Book, first published in 1986, presents 96formally stringent and highly erotic nudes, all of themphotographs of black men, either as full figures, orstaged as details, as fragments of their bodies.Stylized as classical statues or provocatively in alltheir presence and sensuous radiance. Black-andwhitephotography was Mapplethorpe s preferredmedium. And his obsessive aesthetics was based oncompletely mastering it, as this enabled him to visualizeany number of tonal gradations and penetratedeep into the very pores of the gleaming black skin.It is a method that reached a climax in these images.The Black Book, Mapplethorpe s homage to the blackmale body, has always been one of the most importantvisual contributions to the discussion on beauty,sensuality, and sexuality in photography.Read More