I’m THRILLED to announce that a major Robert Mapplethorpe gallery exhibit, and much more, will be included on my LGBT gallery tour Sat. May 14 in Chelsea.  By the time Mapplethorpe died in 1989 from AIDS-related causes at age 42, he was both revered and reviled as a pioneer photographer of explicit homoeroticism.  For the exhibit we’ll be visiting on the tour, the gallery asked 50 Americans of diverse backgrounds to choose one photo each from thousands of Mapplethorpe’s works that personally resonated with them.  The result is a true retrospective that spans much of the artist’s tragically shortened career. Included in the show are iconic works that you may recognize immediately, as well as photos from Mapplethorpe’s foundation that have rarely if ever been seen.  And you’ll be sharing this experience with dozens of other gay people, making it as fun a social gathering as it will be a stimulating cultural experience.

We’ll explore 7 exhibits total, all of them deemed by me – the gay founder of N.Y. Gallery Tours – to be of interest to a queer sensibility.  Another highlight of the tour will be several astonishing Keith Haring murals that he created when he was 24 years old in collaboration with gay choreographer Bill T. Jones’ dance performances.  In each of three evenings, Haring created a graffiti painting from scratch on the back wall of a stage while Jones danced in front of Haring’s paintings with no music, Haring’s brushstrokes being the only sound accompaniment.  They were observed simultaneously by audiences in an edgy downtown space.  After the performances Haring stored away the murals, and only now – almost 30 years after their execution – are they being shown again.  I find them to be exhilarating.  We’ll also see notebook drawings that Haring drew the year he moved to New York at age 19, consisting of dozens of penises.  Haring, too, died of AIDS, at age 31.

Lesbian artists will by no means be overlooked.  We’ll visit a gallery show of photographs by an edgy lesbian artist currently living in France that evoke the works of her uber-famous friend Nan Goldin.  Goldin, a former drug addict, attained art star status after years of photographing her impoverished freewheeling friends, many of them gay, in their squalid living quarters.  One lesbian friend featured in a number of Goldin’s photos – some would call her Goldin’s “muse” – went on to take her own photographs in Nan Goldin’s style, and we’ll see this artist’s latest works.  Particularly interesting are candid shots of the artist’s girlfriend in their Paris environs, as well as portraits of her former boyfriends (from the days before she fully identified as lesbian).

For many participants, Mapplethorpe’s phenomenal show will be the climax of the tour.  Then again, it will be my job to ensure we attain multiple climaxes that day.

Rafael Risemberg, Ph.D.
Founder and Director
New York Gallery Tours