American Cycle

September 18th, 2020 - November 7th, 2020
Toni Onley Gallery

Featured Artist:

Edward Mapplethorpe

American Cycle, 2020
Single channel video filmed on an IPhone
Duration: 35 minutes, 16 seconds

Prior to COVID-19 turning the world inside out and upside down, our planned exhibition in the Main Gallery for September – November 2020 was to feature the minimalist sculptures of Anna Gustafson of Salt Spring Island, and the monochromatic large scale photographs of Edward Mapplethorpe from New York City. As the implications of the pandemic took hold, we were all faced with navigating unprecedented facility closures, setting into motion a domino effect of deferment, delay, and cancellation of our exhibitions and programming. Sadly, one of the victims of this shifting landscape was the planned exhibition featuring the work of Anna Gustafson and Edward Mapplethorpe, which are now planned to be featured next summer.

Keeping in touch with Edward, he mentioned a new installation piece he had just completed in response to the COVID-19 lock-down and the added uncertainty of the looming US election. I asked if we could feature it as part of our own upcoming exhibitions designed to document this extraordinary moment in our collective history. A huge debt of gratitude to Edward Mapplethorpe for allowing us the opportunity to present the world premiere of his latest work, American Cycle, 2020.

Paul Crawford, Curator

ARTIST STATEMENT

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic lock-down I, like many artists, have been restricted by limited access to my studio and materials to pursue my artistic practice. As Plato is attributed to have first observed, necessity is the mother of invention, and challenges often inspire new and innovative avenues of creativity. The idea for American Cycle was conceived from the depths of this isolation in response to the barrage of dispiriting news coverage concerning the deplorable state of our United States. Particularly concerning is the prolonged severity and politicization of the pandemic and the alarming socio-economic, environmental, and racial inequities it not only reveals but also propagates. With mere days until the American people cast their votes to determine the fate of democracy and the free world, American Cycle serves as a call to action for our country to cleanse itself of its social and political stains. The turbulent soundtrack, evocative of helicopters, military drums, and thunder, echoes the vicious cycle of disorienting division and violence our country has been swept into, but also present is the sustained, sometimes imperceptible, but steady pulse that represents the indomitable heartbeat of our American union.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Born and raised in New York, Edward Mapplethorpe began his solo career in 1990 under the pseudonym Edward Maxey and was quickly acclaimed for his luminous nudes, portraits, and still lives that were evocative of his older brother, Robert Mapplethorpe (1946–1989). However, it was his innovative work beyond the controlled environment of the studio (Undercurrents, 1992-94) that first distinguished him as a unique talent in bridging the gap between photography and abstract painting.

Since that time, his work has progressively incorporated painterly qualities and experimental working practices, seen throughout his distinguished bodies of work that include: Undercurrents (1992-94), Stars and Stripes (1994), Transmographs (2000), Compositions (2002), HAIR Transfer (2004; commissioned by Shiseido la Beauté), TimeLines (2007), TimeZones (2008), and The Variations (2011 - 2014). Most recently (September 2016) Mapplethorpe mounted an exhibition at the Katharina Maria Raab Gallery in Berlin, Germany titled PROCESS that featured The Cube, a series of eight photographs derived from photographer Ansel Adams' Lighting a Cube as well a series of "portraits" of traditional analogue photographic equipment including the Hasselblad camera owned by the artist's elder brother Robert.

In addition to his creative practice, Mapplethorpe has built a very successful reputation through his commissioned photographs of twelve-month-old children. A monograph of these portraits titled ONE: Sons & Daughters was released in spring 2016 by powerHouse Books. The culmination of a twenty-year project, the book features a series of sixty portraits that catch the fleeting, yet universal, moment in life when a child reaches one year of age. Essays by esteemed contemporary authors Adam Gopnik, Susan Olean, Francine Prose, and Andrew Solomon accompany the photographs. Patti Smith contributes a poem while Samantha Boardman, M.D. writes the introduction. Contributions from such diverse luminaries emphasize the widespread appeal such innocent and unguarded beauty has for so many people.

The artist lives and works in New York.