Dianne Benson, Charlie Porter and Jack Walls on Robert Mapplethorpe

On the occasion of the online exhibition Fashion, Clothes, People, Pictures (2023) by Robert Mapplethorpe, the curator Charlie Porter discusses Mapplethorpe’s relationship with fashion alongside the artist’s collaborators, Dianne Benson and Jack Walls.

“Actually, photographers were maybe thought of as fashion photographers rather than artists. I feel like he was navigating that relationship in his work, often making work for advertising or for magazines. So it’s this curious situation where he did work for fashion but it certainly wasn’t the thing that centred him. It’s a kind of weird part of his life; a weird tension in his life.” — Charlie Porter