Louise Bourgeois on Mapplethorpe

"In 1982 Mapplethorpe and I were censored by the Museum of Modern Art when his photograph of me holding Fillette was labeled pornographic. They reproduced the portrait but cropped out the sculpture. I met Mapplethorpe on the occasion of that portrait. At that time he was preparing his show of crosses on red velvet with great seriousness. Pornography is nothing new. We have the rape of Europa by Zeus disguised as a bull in Greek mythology, the story of Leda and Zeus disguised as a swan, the rape of the Sabines from the Trojan War, and very specially the sculpture from India. Do we have to mention William Faulkner and the ear of corn? Pornography serves the outrage of special interests. This is politics and has nothing to do with art. In fact Mapplethorpe was dealing with a deeper truth. S and M reveals the fact that man is wolf to man. Who will quarrel with that?" -Louise Bourgeois (1911 -- 2010) from ARTnews October 1989, "What is pornography?" (p. 138) Video except from Nigel Finch's excellent documentary on Mapplethorpe (currently available in its entirety at http://www.ubu.com/film/mapplethorpe_... ).