MAPPLETHORPE, Robert; Arthur C. DANTO (text). Playing with the Edge. The Photographic Achievement of Robert Mapplethorpe.

MAPPLETHORPE, Robert; Arthur C. DANTO (text). Playing with the Edge. The Photographic Achievement of Robert Mapplethorpe. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. 1996.

4to. Original black cloth, lettered in silver to spine, in photoillustrated dust-jacket; pp. [7], ix-xii, 194, [2]; minimal creasing to edges of jacket; a nearfine copy, in like dustjacket.

First edition, first impression of critic and philosopher Arthur C. Danto’s expressive essay on the achievement of this controversial photographer.

One of the most distinguished philosophical critics of the arts, Arthur C. Danto provides a lucid and graceful discussion of Robert Mapplethorpe’s career. Addressing the public reception of Mapplethorpe’s work and the accusations of pornography, Danto breaks with common responses to these photographs to give a sympathetic account of the artist’s legacy. While refusing to retreat from the sexual content in Mapplethorpe’s portraits, Danto uses illustrations of Mapplethorpe’s work as examples from which to discuss the theoretical relationship between photographer and subject.

SKU: 2125384