{"id":37365,"date":"2016-09-15T14:36:47","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T12:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/?p=37365"},"modified":"2016-09-15T14:36:47","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T12:36:47","slug":"bdsm-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/de\/article\/bdsm-art\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Artists Who Turned BDSM into Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Robert Robert Mapplethorpe, ‘Boot Fetish’ (1979) and Catherine Opie’s ‘O, Portfolio’ (1999). Images courtesy of\u00a0mapplethorpe.la and hyperallergic.com<\/p>\n

 
\nThe chronology of bondage can be traced back to the Marquis de Sade\u2019s torrid erotic literary works in the late 18th century. The sexual libertine instigated a rich evolution of a style that has since influenced iconic tastemakers. In 60s New York, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe<\/a> was at the helm of the underground queer and BDSM scene, crafting his opus of powerful, homoerotic images. The controversial BDSM practices featured in his 1978 \u201cX Portfolio\u201d later triggered Catherine Opie\u2019s \u201cO Portfolio\u201d, which extends the theme of sadomasochistic rituals.
\nIn honour of Opie\u2019s series which is currently on view at LACMA<\/a>, we\u2019ve compiled a list of our five favourite artists stretching the limits of art through S&M.
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\"Catherine Taken from the “O Portfolio” by Catherine Opie, images courtesy of LACMA<\/p>\n

Catherine Opie<\/h2>\n

Catherine Opie\u2019s work captures the raw tenderness and explicit sexuality of San Francisco\u2019s bondage community during the Nineties. At this time, AIDS had reached crisis point and leather wear was still taboo. Meanwhile Opie was constructing and capturing intimate scenes in her studio. Scenes which confronted a type of sexual play that was misunderstood in mainstream culture. Romantic and intimate, Opie\u2019s black and white soft focus snapshots sensitively highlight her subjects and assuage highly charged sexual imagery such as rope binding and blood.
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\"Robert Robert Mapplethorpe. Image courtesy fotografiska.eu<\/p>\n

Robert Mapplethorpe<\/h2>\n

Power play, gender and porn are prescient topics in Robert Mapplethorpe\u2019s work. His muses were androgynous outsiders such as body-builder and actress Lisa Lyon, writer Kathy Acker, and singer-poet Patti Smith. S&M and gay culture also informed his work and his titles are often overt references to this, for example \u201cBoot Fetish\u201d (1979), \u201cMan in Polyester Suite\u201d (1980) and \u201cCock\u201d (1981). They depict Mapplethorpe\u2019s bold and radically candid study of sexuality that was recently the subject of a major retrospective at LACMA.
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