Altars

Robert Mapplethorpe's reputation was based on a body of black and white prints, including portraits and sexual imagery. From the start of his career he was working with colour, making collages and then polaroids and colour photographs, few of which have been seen. ALTARS presents this colour work together with his final work, which were unique prints, elaborately framed and mounted on multiple coloured panels. The final work was the culmination of his creation of the unique photographic object, and it places Mapplethorpe outside the realm of photography and firmly in the world of contemporary art.