The Black Book

A classic, indeed perhaps the best of the Mapplethorpe books. For many, it is certainly the most typical Mapplethorpe, now available once again thanks to this re-edition. The Black Book, first published in 1986, presents 96 formally stringent and highly erotic nudes, all of them photographs of black men, either as full figures or staged as details, as fragments of their bodies. Stylized as classical statues or provocatively showcasing their presence and sensuous radiance. Black-and-white photography was Mapplethorpe's preferred medium, and his obsessive aesthetics were based on completely mastering it, allowing him to visualize numerous tonal gradations and penetrate deep into the very pores of the gleaming black skin. This method reached a climax in these images. The Black Book, Mapplethorpe's homage to the black male body, has always been one of the most important works.