| 摘要: | Robert Mapplethorpe（1946-1989）作為美國當代攝影史上備受爭議的人物，在當世或後世的印象中，以尺度大膽卻呈現形式或古典美感的人體攝影和性攝影聞名。也因為他的同性性傾向，被後世視為男同志藝術家的代表人物之一，受到藝術界與同志圈的矚目。然而從目前傳世的作品來看，除了有許多的作品內容不僅非男同性戀，在拍攝手法和內容上也有脫離形式古典美的作品。此外，雖然Mapplethorpe的攝影作品相當出名，但他還有許多的早期拼貼和素描很少人研究，而這些早期作品中的許多人物形象更非只有同性戀者。如此紛陳的創作關切，也需要以新的眼光看待他的作品。
本論文的第一章「惡魔」主要先處理他的早期作品。這些作品除了挪用惡魔形象，用來指涉不受傳統秩序所容的女性、同性戀和畸形人之外，還變造了聖像，並創造出光照系統。傳統的天主教聖人被置換為這些邊緣群體，不僅詰問了宗教，也有讓他們被世人所見的創作意圖。第二章「暴力」則延續對邊緣群體的關切，探討Mapplethorpe的SM攝影作品。在戰後的陽剛氣質重建中，SM發展出的皮革衣飾和性行為是照片的核心對象。Mapplethorpe除了旁觀拍攝，他也在參與SM的過程中，拍攝出當時SM對於陽剛與汙穢雙重需求的「酷兒陽剛」，呈現陽剛敢曝的人工特質，融合了超現實攝影傳統與SM地下色情材料，造就這批攝影在藝術與色情間的模糊定位。第三章「幽靈」則將重點轉向1980年代的展覽情境與攝影史書寫。在畫廊主的引介下，Mapplethorpe的作品開始與當時攝影的美感需求結合，進入大型展館，漸漸塑造其攝影家的地位。從後世的攝影史書寫中，也可以看見這些展覽為其定位的風格論述，在這些書中延續，成為後世理解Mapplethorpe的主要來源。前二章節試圖透過作品的重新發掘，意圖呈現Mapplethorpe對於邊緣群體的創作關切，終章則以這些邊緣群體的隱沒，突顯出美感論述的不足，需要新的眼界。;As a celebrity in the history of American photography, Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) is famous for his nude and sex photographs. Bold and controversial contents in his oeuvre are rendered with a formal beauty and classical aura. His homosexual identity also makes him a significant figure in contemporary art field and gay community. However, in regard with his works preserved nowadays, many of them are not of homosexual content, and can hardly be categorized as formal or classical in terms of techniques and contents. Furthermore, although scholarly literature on his photographs is abundant, those on his early collages and drawings, which are not restricted to homosexual subjects, are rather few. His multifaceted concerns expressed in his works require a new understanding.
The first chapter of this thesis, “Demons”, deals with his early works, in which he appropriates images of demons to illustrate outcasts, or marginal subjects, intolerable by the traditional order, such as unchaste women, people engaging in homosexual act, and the deformed (e.g. of freak show). In addition, he deconstructs Catholic icons and develops his own lighting system, in which saints are replaced by those marginal subjects; by virtue of this, he challenges the power relations in religion and makes those marginal subjects and their conditions be seen by viewers. The second chapter “Violence” continues this concern of the marginal subjects and focuses on his SM photographs. Leather clothing and sexual act of SM, as the byproduct of masculinity rebuilding in the postwar era, are the focus of these photographs. Mapplethorpe was not only an observer, but one of the participants who recorded their needs of masculinity and filthy sex. This becomes what I call “queer masculinity” aesthetics and reveals the artificiality in masculine Camp. These photographs are based on surrealist photographic practices, and are also infused with elements in SM visual material, and thus of ambiguous nature between art and pornography. The last chapter “Specters” focuses on his exhibition situation in the 1980s and his position in some works on photographic history. With introduction of some gallerists, Mapplethorpe’s works met the need of aesthetic discourses of photography and entered into art museums and large scale exhibitions. Mapplethorpe has been since then regarded as an art photographer to date. Descriptions on his styles derived from these exhibitions recurred in later writings on photographic history, and became the main sources of our understanding of his oeuvre. The first two chapters re-examine some of his works in attempt to demonstrate his concerns about the marginal subjects. The last chapter elaborates how these subjects “have disappeared” to highlight the insufficiency of aesthetic discourses, and thus a new understanding is required. |
