High Art and the Dick Pic

 

Untitled, 1981

Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) was, and still is, celebrated for his exceptionally stylised black and white studio photography; mainly portraits of celebrities, delicate flower studies and (predominantly black) male nudes. He provoked praise, wonder and controversy with his work both during his lifetime and in the years since his early death.

His nudes are highly formal, some almost abstract shapes, with tremendous attention to detail in the composition, the capture and the post-production. Many of his nudes focus on the penis—sometimes erect, usually flaccid. The images have been described by some critics, elements of the media and sectors of society as obscene, and, even though they were exhibited and published extensively during his lifetime and still are to this day, have been the subject of much criticism, censorship and litigation.

So when is a picture of a dick not a dick pic, or are these "high art" (as Mapplethorpe himself described them) images, in fact, also dick pics? Both categories are, after all, about as phallocentric as you can get. Perhaps, once again, a lot comes down to intent and interpretation: a dick pic is specifically a picture of a dick, usually largely lacking any artistic merit, sent for the purpose of achieving a sexual reaction, either on behalf of the sender or the recipient. 

And yet Mapplethorpe himself stated that some of his images were created with the aim of arousing the viewer, and referred to some of his work as pornographic, while simultaneously affirming that it could also be regarded as "high art". But although the images were created with the intent to arouse, they were so stylised, so technically perfect and so, well, artistic, that they tower miles above the grubby dick pic. They are, after all, the work of a highly talented and gifted artist: not the result of a quick mobile-phone selfie. Mapplethorpe's images may be pictures of dicks, but they are most definitely not dick pics.

Mapplethorpe had every reason to choose the penis as legitimate and interesting subject matter for artistic representation, in part because of the intrinsic interest (some may say beauty) of the subject, and in part because of the highly unusual and innovative nature of the subject matter. I have tried in the past to emulate his images, but with very limited success. My best images are a little better than the average dick pic, but are, needless to say, far, far inferior to Mapplethorpe's work in every single way possible—the technical aspects, the composition, the beauty, and, of course, the art of an established artist whose work has been displayed in galleries around the world for the last 50-odd years.

Dennis Speight (Portfolio Z) 1980

Greg Cauley-Cock, 1980