Art

Black White Gray : A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe (2007

The film Black White Gray : A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe (2007 ' dramatizes the complex and controversial relationship of two important people in the world of photography , the famous photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and the legendary curator Sam Wagstaff . This film is based on a true story thus considered a biopic film that attempts to tell or portray the historical intimate relationship of Wagstaff and Mapplethorpe , their circle of talented friends , the times and setting that surrounded them

during 1970s and till 1980s when their lives where cut short by AIDS .  Though both love art and photography , Wagstaff and Mapplethorpe have extreme differences that perhaps created a chemistry between them . These two men not only have different gender orientation and age but they also have opposite background in terms of lifestyle . Wagstaff came from aristocratic New York background . He is a man of paradoxical extremes as he is a mysterious man of passion and privacy . He started to collect photographs after he inherited his mother 's millions in early 1970s . Sam Wagstaff is an individualistic man , believes in complete liberation in photography He is also a long time repressed homosexual . Wagstaff is one of the few collectors who immediately saw the artistic value of photographs . His collections vary from historically significant pictures of medical and forensic images to vintage photographs . Wagstaff 's contact with Mapplethorpe electrified his passion in the art of photography and gave him the...