Levi Prombaum, Curatorial Assistant, Collections, discusses Robert Mapplethorpe's photograph "Embrace" (1982) in relation to civil rights era images of interracial cooperation.
List of images, in order of appearance:
Robert Mapplethorpe, Self Portrait, 1980
Installation shot, “Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now,” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, January 25, 2019 - January 5, 2020 (Photo: David Heald)
Robert Mapplethorpe, Embrace, 1982
SNCC buttons, early-mid 1960s
March on Washington button, 1963
Excerpt from “Scenes from Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C., August 1963,” from Public.Resource.Org
Excerpt from James Blue, “The March,” 1963, from US National Archives
Francis Miller, March on Washington, 1963, from Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images Excerpt from “Changing America: The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863 and the March on Washington, 1963,” from the National Museum of African American History and Culture
SNCC buttons, early mid-1960s
Richard Avedon, Self Portrait with James Baldwin, 1964
T.C. Cannon, Soldier, 1970
Faith Ringgold, American People Series #9: The American Dream, 1964
Robert Colescott, Knowledge of the Past is the Key to the Future: St. Sebastian, 1986
Robert Mapplethorpe, Self Portrait, 1976
Robert Mapplethorpe, Self Portrait, 1983
Gilles Larrain, Jack Walls and Robert Mapplethorpe, 1982
Joy Oladokun (@JoyOladokun), TikTok video, 2020
This program is part of Artwork Anthology, an ongoing series of online talks—each focusing on a single work of art— exploring the many and sometimes lesser known stories behind artworks in the Guggenheim's collection.