Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
ARTIST ROOMS
National Heritage Memorial Fund
Art Fund
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/robert-mapplethorpe-11413" aria-label="More by Robert Mapplethorpe" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Robert Mapplethorpe</a>
Dominick and Elliot
ARTIST ROOMS
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
<p>This black and white photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe depicts a sadomasochistic scene between two men named Dominick and Elliot. The figures occupy a dark interior space, with black walls. Dominick, who is entirely naked except for the white underwear pulled down to his thighs, is strapped with leather bindings around his wrists and ankles, and is hoisted upside down in a cruciform position with his arms outstretched to the floor and his legs tied together pointing upwards. A thick chain is secured around his neck which trails up the length of his torso to his genitals. His stretched out body spans almost the entire vertical length of the picture in the centre of the composition. He stares straight at the camera while Elliot, who stands upright to the left of Dominick, loops his left arm through Dominick’s legs and grabs his testicles. In contrast to Dominick’s vulnerable and seemingly uncomfortable position, Elliot’s pose, with his legs planted wide, is faintly aggressive. He wears no shirt and the top buttons of his jeans are undone. In his right hand he holds a cigarette and draws attention to his own crotch while looking at the camera with an assured, intense stare.</p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver
25 September 2010 – 21 November 2010
2010-11-21
25 September 2010 – 21 November 2010
2010-11-21
2010-09-25
Towner (Eastbourne, UK)
http://www.townereastbourne.org.uk/
2010-09-25
ARTIST ROOMS 2010: Robert Mapplethorpe
Loan-out
15 December 2018 – 23 March 2019
2019-03-23
15 December 2018 – 23 March 2019
2019-03-23
2018-12-15
Atkinson Art Gallery (Southport, UK)
2018-12-15
ARTIST ROOMS 2018: Robert Mapplethorpe
Loan-out
Dominick and Elliot
support: 340 × 341 mm
frame: 612 × 587 × 38 mm
<a href="/search?gid=999999788" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">ARTIST ROOMS</a>
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the <a href="/search?gid=999999967" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">National Heritage Memorial Fund</a> and the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 2008
<div class="text">
<p>This black and white photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe depicts a sadomasochistic scene between two men named Dominick and Elliot. The figures occupy a dark interior space, with black walls. Dominick, who is entirely naked except for the white underwear pulled down to his thighs, is strapped with leather bindings around his wrists and ankles, and is hoisted upside down in a cruciform position with his arms outstretched to the floor and his legs tied together pointing upwards. A thick chain is secured around his neck which trails up the length of his torso to his genitals. His stretched out body spans almost the entire vertical length of the picture in the centre of the composition. He stares straight at the camera while Elliot, who stands upright to the left of Dominick, loops his left arm through Dominick’s legs and grabs his testicles. In contrast to Dominick’s vulnerable and seemingly uncomfortable position, Elliot’s pose, with his legs planted wide, is faintly aggressive. He wears no shirt and the top buttons of his jeans are undone. In his right hand he holds a cigarette and draws attention to his own crotch while looking at the camera with an assured, intense stare.</p>
<p>This photograph was taken in 1979 at a time when Mapplethorpe was particularly interested in taking photographs of sadomasochistic sexual practices and the individuals who practised them. Mapplethorpe first met Elliot in 1976 through Jack Fritscher, who was editor of <i>Drummer</i>,<i> </i>a magazine for leather enthusiasts.<i> </i>Fritscher was impressed by Mapplethorpe’s photographs and was eager to elevate the status of the magazine by assigning him to take a picture of Elliot, a S&amp;M call boy, for the magazine’s cover, which appeared on the front of issue number twenty-four that year. This led to Mapplethorpe gaining contacts and credibility in the ‘sex network’, which the photographer himself described as being ‘like any other kind of network’ (Mapplethorpe quoted in Morrisroe 1995, p.165). It was through Elliot that Mapplethorpe met Dominick and subsequently collaborated with both of them on this image.</p>
<p>Mapplethorpe was actively engaged in the S&amp;M scene himself during the mid-to-late 1970s. He photographed sadomasochistic practices as an active participant, not simply as a voyeuristic observer, producing images that were deemed by some in the art world to be shocking. For example, the writer Ingrid Sischy described these images as ‘fearful’ and ‘intricately frightening’ (Ingrid Sischy ‘A Society Artist’, <i>Robert Mapplethorpe</i>,<i> </i>London 1991, p.84), while the critic and philosopher Arthur Danto believed that this particular image is one of Mapplethorpe’s most challenging photographs and that it ‘outdoes anything dreamed of by Mapplethorpe’ (Danto 1996, p.69). However these photographs were often seen as tame in S&amp;M circles. Nick Biens, a S&amp;M specialist who sat for Mapplethorpe (see Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mapplethorpe-nick-ar00159" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00159</span></a>), referred to Mapplethorpe’s images as being an ‘artsified version of S&amp;M. They’re not like photographs snapped during an actual scene’ (Biens cited in Morrisroe 1995, p.191).</p>
<p>Art historian Richard Meyer has commented on how staged Mapplethorpe’s S&amp;M photographs are. Rather than being presented with an image of sexual engagement, <i>Dominick and Elliot</i> features two figures formally arranged, presenting their erotic positions and equipment. As Meyer remarks: ‘Rather then enact a pretense of photographic transparency, the couple insist upon the artifice of their pose, challenging our spectatorial power to see and freeze them by signifying their agency in allowing a prepared, patently limited view of their sadomasochistic “image”.’ (Meyer 1989, p.72.)</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Richard Meyer, ‘Imaging Sadomasochism: Robert Mapplethorpe and the Masquerade of Photography’, <i>Qui Parle</i>,<i> </i>vol.4, no.1, Fall 1990, pp.62–78.<br/>Patricia Morrisroe, <i>Mapplethorpe. A Biography, </i>London 1995.<br/>Arthur Coleman Danto, <i>Playing With The Edge: The Photographic Achievement of Robert Mapplethorpe</i>, Berkeley and London 1996.</p>
<p>Susan Mc Ateer<br/>University of Edinburgh<br/>June 2013</p>
<p>
<i>The University of Edinburgh is a research partner of ARTIST ROOMS</i>.</p>
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Summary
2014-06-13T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>This image of a ritualised, sado-masochistic, torture scene has strong art historical and Catholic overtones. A common image in medieval and renaissance painting was the martyrdom of St Peter, who was crucified upside-down (at his own bidding, because he did not wish to be compared with Christ). Mapplethorpe was well aware of the continuing influence that his Catholic upbringing had upon him and his art. As Paul Schmidt wrote in his introduction to Mapplethorpe’s notorious ‘X Portfolio’: ‘In a secular age, these images are all we have left. Here are the images of our modern martyrdom: our Scourgings, our Crownings with Thorns, our Crucifixions.’</p>

Online caption
2009-04-16T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION