Utah Film Center to screen new Robert Mapplethorpe biopic
It has been nearly 30 years since Robert Mapplethorpe died of AIDS at the age of 42. In a career that blossomed rapidly within a decade, Mapplethorpe set new stakes as an artist-photographer. However, during his life, his work also was commingled with protests by politicians and the Christian right-wing, which gained huge political influence during the Reagan years, and triggered unwarranted fears during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and censorship of creative expression. Mapplethorpe’s death did not end the controversies. This included, of course, the first arrest and jury trial ever of a museum director, Dennis Barrie, who served as the director of the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center.