Cross

Robert Mapplethorpe was born in 1946 in Queens, NY, and died in 1989 in Boston. In spite of his untimely death, he is considered one of the great American photographers. The work "Cross" (1986) is one of many photographs in which Mapplethorpe focused on a single body part. The cross is also a typical motif for him. As in all of his photographs, its dominant features are sharpness, contrast, detail, the play of light and shadow, as well as the connotation of something religious, sexual, or even satanic. This lithograph is titled "For Beuys" and counts among a series of 30 works by young artists that was compiled as a homage to Beuys.