Mapplethorpe, Japanese-American photographers and Happy Kitty in Little Tokyo Los Angeles

Beautiful images, not-suitable-for-kids subjects

Last weekend I saw the Mapplethorpe exhibition at the Getty and most of the photographs were ones I had seen before so I decided not to write a post about it. Lots of beautiful photos of naked men, a few women, and floral still lifes. The only astonishing photos were a series of 12 Mapplethorpe took of the Sado-Masochistic world in New York and California back in the early 1980s. And he included a selfie! I wondered what Rembrandt, the godfather of self-created portraits, would have thought about that!

Instead of going to see the other half of the Mapplethorpe show which is at LACMA, I decided to go to a photography exhibition at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo. And I was surprised to learn that this show, originally organized in 1985, replaced the Mapplethorpe show in 1986 when it was yanked out of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.  If I remember correctly there was enormous outrage about Mapplethorpe’s show back then not only because of the naked men photos, but because he included a ‘sculpture’ of a cross in a bucket of urine.

Japanese-American  Internment Exhibit

So it is suitable that this Japanese American photography show of works created during the 1920s and 1930s be exhibited at the same time that Mapplethorpe is currently dominating the L.A. art and photography scene.

The Japanese American National Museum focuses on the relocation into very primitive camps of American citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II.

Across the street from the museum is the Japanese Village Plaza, filled with cafe and shops for tourists. Enormous then and now contrasts!