Art and instant gratification.

ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE'S Polaroid photographs are not a well-known part of his ceuvre, but they contain virtually all of the basic themes and elements that blossomed and matured in his later work. Beginning in 1970 and for roughly five years when he was in his twenties, Mapplethorpe created a body of work that runs to roughly 1,500 Polaroid photos. The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York recently mounted an exhibit of about a hundred of these pictures entitled "Polaroids: Mapplethorpe" in its Sondra Gilman Gallery. The exhibit was curated by Sylvia Wolf, recently named Director of the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, Washington, in collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation in New York.

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Wolf's judicious selections amply illustrate each genre for which Mapplethorpe is best known, including still lifes, portraits, and figure studies, as well as the artist's early explorations of gay sexuality that would lead to his infamous "dirty pictures," as the artist himself called them. The seeds of Mapplethorpe's interests are all here, only before he absorbed the more exacting formalistic influences of several predecessors that typify his later work. Also, the Polaroids precede his hiring of master printers to produce the results he sought, though he continued to use a Polaroid sometimes for set-ups and trial shots.

Mapplethorpe stated in a 1988 interview that photography "was the perfect medium, or so it seemed, for the 70's and 80's, when everything was fast. If I were to make something that took two weeks to do, I'd lose my enthusiasm. It would become an act of labor and the love would be gone." But if the Polaroid's ability to provide instant gratification matched the spirit of the times, it's also the case that Mapplethorpe was at this time a regular user of cocaine and a variety of other drugs. What's more, the quest for immediate gratification extended to the kind of sexuality he compulsively practiced. His regular cruising at the Mineshaft and other gay sex bars certainly wasn't about forming long-term relationships. During the years represented by this Whitney exhibit, Mapplethorpe was actually in the midst of what would prove his most exclusive and devoted liaison (other than his long association with singer-poet Patti Smith), with his mentor and sponsor, Sam Wagstaff.

Prior to his connection to the wealthy and erudite Wagstaff, while under the tutelage of his friend John McEndry, who was then curator of prints and photography at the Metropolitan Museum, Mapplethorpe was given access to the Met's photography collection, where he was first exposed to the earlier masters of the medium. Although he did not approach the opportunity with anything that could be considered a scholarly interest, he did get a feast of important visual images to consider and learn from. Later, as a couple, Wagstaff and Mapplethorpe continued that education as the older partner amassed one of the finest and largest collections of both historic and contemporary photographs in the U.S., including over 5,000 images that were eventually acquired by the Getty Museum.

As Sylvia Wolf cogently states in the exhibit's accompanying catalog essay, "With the instant camera and film, Mapplethorpe defined his sexual identity and artistic persona, developed the basic style and subject matter of his work, and established the personal relationships that would become the foundation of his artistic success. But above all, Mapplethorpe learned how to see photographically with the Polaroid camera." The principal difference between Mapplethorpe's Polaroids and his later, more emotionally distant and technically exacting photographs is the immediacy of his subjects' responses to being photographed. The Polaroids are more spontaneous and experimental, less studied, and sexier because of this quality of instantaneity.

Polaroids: Mapplethorpe

At the Whitney Museum, New York, in collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation

May 3 through Sept. 7, 2008.

David B. Boyce, a freelance arts writer and curator, is curatorial consultant for the New Bedford Art Museum in New Bedford, Mass.