Interview with Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato on ‘Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures’ documentary
This interview was the material used for this RollingStone.com feature story: Why We’ll Never Forget Robert Mapplethorpe
Jerry Portwood: I’ve talked to a lot of documentary filmmakers and they talk about the fact that more people will see it on HBO then they’ll probably see it in a traditional movie house, but does that make a difference to you?
Randy Barbato: For us, I think people getting to watch it is the most important thing, although this particular film we’re happy it has a theatrical release because it does…There is something about seeing his more challenging work on a huge screen and with other people. I think, you know, it helps…It just has a different kind of impact and I think part of Mapplethorpe’s whole idea…You know, he said that art should challenge us to open ourselves up and I think that presenting…The way you present it is part of the way you can challenge people. So you know, I like it better when people see it at least not on a laptop because that’s you know that’s…
I grew up actually with the whole Jesse Helms thing and it was burned into my mind. I remember the first time I got to see Mapplethorpe, I was living in Georgia in the deep South and I went to a thing on censorship and they showed us the bullwhip picture and I was in high school and I had never seen anything like this before.
Barbato: You were in high school?
Yeah, it was at a college thing I snuck into in South Georgia, where I lived. [Laughs]
Barbato: Wow.
But there are still many people I know — including people my age or older — who don’t even know the work. With the exhibits happening in L.A., I’m curious: Why Mapplethorpe and why now?
Fenton Bailey: Well it’s…I mean that’s a really good question. We were asked that —
I’m sure I’m the first person to ever ask it! [Laughs]
Bailey: No, we were asked that question…When we were first asked that question, we didn’t know the answer. We were like, “Well that’s a good point. Why now?” And then —
Barbato: I actually got testy. [Laughs]
Bailey: Actually what happened is, when you make a documentary, it’s a sort of a journey and it’s a process of discovery and it’s the same when you’re showing the documentary because that process continues. So the film premiered at Sundance and we went to Berlin and and then to Istanbul and the thing was in, you know in America, we got the rise of Trump. And it really has happened pretty much since we’ve been making this film. Trump is suddenly like a mushroom — or something worse.
And then Germany is dealing with this refugee crisis. And when we were in Turkey, there was a terrorist bomb went off. So it struck us that the world seems at this point of crisis, kind of the verge of closing borders, closing our minds — I mean certainly in the case of Trump, you know. This idea of just basically closing down.
And Mapplethorpe’s whole point was that art is about opening something up. I mean, that’s what we said. And you can’t look at those photos in the X Portfolio, whoever you are — it’s not about whether you’re gay or straight — those are very arresting images, and they make you think because you don’t normally see that everyday even if you are in that life.
And I think, “Why now?” Because it’s actually more important than ever. You know, you can think, “Oh well his work…because you can just Google ‘fucking,’ and you can see it on the Internet…” [Laughs] But his work is so self-evidently different to what you’ll find on the Internet. It’s paradoxical: On the one hand, you see similar images, but the mental state of the country seems to be even more Helmsian than it was back then.
So his art and, particularly his challenging art in general, but Mapplethorpe’s work seems kind of more critical than ever. So that’s why now. [Laughs]
I also love it as a counterpoint to Patti Smith’s book Just Kids because one of the issues I had with the book was that it almost seems like an accident they got famous —
Barbato: Yes.
Or it was an accident that they were so talented. Yet you guys really hammer home how ambitious they were.
Bailey: Do you know what though, I want to say this: It’s always interesting when audiences say after seeing the film, “Oh, he wasn’t a very nice guy, was he?” And we’re like, “No, no, no. You don’t understand. It’s not about whether he was nice or not nice.” He was ambitious and open and honest about that ambition. And you know what? He was right. Because you cannot afford to be an artist and just make work in your garage and wait to be discovered. That is a lie. That is not what happens. And you know what’s more? It’s not a new idea. It’s been around since the Renaissance. You know, you didn’t get to paint the Vatican ceiling just because you were fantastic. It’s like, you kissed the pope’s ass, you had patrons.
You know, it’s not like it’s a new idea. Mapplethorpe always said he wanted to be an artist — whenever that was — when he was a kid, whenever it was. And what he decided was that it was making great work but then positioning the work. Getting it noticed, getting it placed. That’s part of the job.
You know who else? Madonna is similar.
I was about to bring her up too.
Bailey: Well, OK!
Barbato: But I think, it’s not only that [Mapplethorpe] was open about it and that is part of what makes him so great and such a pioneer. The very things that some people might come away and criticize him about are the very things that Fenton and I found amazing and admirable about him. The brutally, brutally honest approach he had to his work was the same attitude he had towards living life. It was that authenticity, particularly in the context of the times, you know, in the ’70s — when it was not cool to be out and open; it was not cool to be an artist and ambitious. Like everyone was pretending that like you know fame and fortune would find you.
But that wasn’t the reality, and he was one of the few — Warhol was another — but he was one of the few that was open about it. And then on top of that, you know, the kind of nature of his explicit work, you know, was outrageous. So all of those things combine to make him, from our point of view, not just a complex guy but admirable, a sort of pioneer. He’s a role model for any artist, any artist. You know…The idea that you just get discovered is not true now, it wasn’t true then, and it was never true. So it’s extraordinary that we think that.
Rather than focus on Patti Smith only, you have the great character of Sandy Daley who gets to say these things in a really great way. Tell me more about her.
Bailey: Sandy was such an important part. She was sort of a doyenne of the Chelsea. She definitely took Robert under her wing, but she was definitely one of those art figures in the Chelsea. She was so important. And I thought it was interesting because when we asked her, “Was Robert ambitious?” and she said, “Yes, there’s no word for it. Both of them.” So, you know. I think that’s —
Barbato: Definitely.
Bailey: She’s extraordinary. [Laughs]
Speaking of characters, tell me a little bit about David Croland.
Bailey: Ahh, love him.
Barbato: Ahh love him. Loved David. David Croland is a great guy because he…you know, he’s an artist himself, he was a model, he’s a photographer, he’s —
Bailey: He’s a great illustrator.
Barbato: A great illustrator. So he’s also a dream subject for a documentarian because he is not…He also is completely authentic, doesn’t edit himself, has such a kind of joy of life.
Yeah, such a quick wit too. [Laughs]
Barbato: You know, tells it like it is.
Bailey: He said he used to make Robert laugh every day and that Robert really liked to laugh. I mean, the sense of humor in the film was really where we’re taking our cues from Robert. Yes, of course he wanted to be the serious artist and yes, he was deadly earnest about his art. And at the same time, he would make pictures that were funny. “Man in Polyester Suit” is funny. “Whip Up The Butt,” it’s funny. You know “Devil’s Horns From the Party Store Down the Road,” it’s funny. It’s as if you can’t be a serious artist and hilarious at the same time.
Barbato: He was funny and ambitious. [Laughing] Or explicit. We took all of our cues in making this film from Robert. Like every aspect of how we put the film together, from the humor to the volume of artwork that we show in it — because we showed almost 500 images of his artwork — to the explicitness of the film. We’re shocked that it’s even going to be shown anywhere [laughs] because it is incredibly explicit. All of our aesthetic choices, we made a kind of clean…It was important to us for it to look clean, for it to be aesthetically…
In some ways, it’s a very classic documentary style. You have like the polaroids and the letters. You’re showing it in a very Ken Burns style. Like, “There you go.”
Yes, yes, well we feel like —
Bailey: But that’s how we would have done it.
Barbato: We feel like a golden shower or a fist-fucking image deserves a Ken Burns treatment.
So I read this in Wagstaff’s biography — and you include its author, Philip Gefter, in the film, which I think is really great — about how this is also a story about the beginning of photography being considered an art form. And people forget that. So in that sense, you have a double mission, because you also had to explain how Mapplethorpe and Wagstaff had to create the market for the work.
Bailey: Exactly. But I do like to… I mean, the way we present it in the film is slightly different to the Wagstaff documentary and the biography because Mapplethorpe chose Wagstaff. Sure, Wagstaff called him up, but Mapplethorpe said if he didn’t have the money they wouldn’t have been together. And you have to remember that, I think it’s really important. It’s just a detail in the film, but it’s so important. Wagstaff was not into photography when he met Mapplethorpe. And it was Mapplethorpe who turned him onto photography.
And Mapplethorpe did that because he could take photographs all he wanted and people would turn to him and say, “It’s not art,” and he was stuck with that. And he…what Mapplethorpe would say is, “Well it is art,” and no one would pay any attention. Mapplethorpe was savvy enough to know he needed a curator or someone with an Ivy League — with the right background, with the right credentials — to champion photography. Along comes Sam Wagstaff, not into photography. So I’ll make him get into photography, he can then champion photography. It was so much more…involved…I just think…Again, this isn’t a criticism of Mapplethorpe. He was strategically brilliant about his collaborations, you know.
Barbato: But I think equally, or more, important is just that we forget… It’s hard to imagine how people… Just people’s point of view or attitude towards photography 30 years ago.It just wasn’t considered an art form, you know, let alone fine art.
That gets us into the next problem, because people say, “This isn’t art; it’s pornography.” There’s even a moment where Jack Fritscher, the editor of Drummer in San Francisco says Mapplethorpe showed up at the magazine’s office and said: “I’m a pornographic photographer.” When he needed to be a pornographic photographer he was, and when he needed to be a fine art photographer he was. Is that part of the confusion as well do you think?
Barbato: I suppose.
Or do we no longer have that confusion?
Bailey: Oh I think we do. But the truth is that something can be both. It can be art and pornography. I mean pornogrpahy is such a loaded term. I mean what does it mean? It essentially means sexually explicit. And why shouldn’t you take pictures of it? It’s always struck me —
I mean during the Renaissance we had the same thing, we just had brushstrokes.
Bailey: Different brushstrokes for different folks. [Laughs]
Barbato: Mapplethorpe was always a documentarian. Like, his life was his art, so it was more…it was less about like…It wasn’t like he was hunting to find a fist-fucking scenario to photography. It’s like, that’s what was happening in his life, and he was turning his life into art —
Bailey: Well his life was art and then the pictures were documenting it.
Barbato: Yeah so I don’t…For me he was never a pornographic photographer. He was always an artist and he was always an artist from very early in his life. He was very clear about that and that’s something we discovered in making the film. When you look…I mean, we have art from when he was in high school. In the film, you get to see him find his voice and find…By the way, he was always interested in the same thing. He was always interested in sex, portraits and still lifes. Like from day one —
Bailey: One of the first things he ever drew was an American flag as a kid in high school. He kept on taking pictures of flags. That’s [one of] the most best-selling pictures he ever took, the shot of the flag. It sold for $600,000 or something.
Barbato: Or something.
There was a quote in the film about that where he says, “Photographs are less important than the life one is leading.”
Bailey: We really didn’t understand that when we first started, we were like, “What does that mean?” So his life was sort of performance art, but his life was a work of art and two ways he documented it: The pictures and then getting people to talk about him. It wasn’t — by the way — that he couldn’t write; he didn’t want to write. He didn’t want to be a sculptor either. He was a photographer. He used photography.
Barbato: He was shortcutting.
Bailey: But I think you have to take what people have written about him and what he said about himself…He was shortcutting. The pictures and then you get…you get the total picture, right.
Barbato: Uh-huh. The perfect picture.
Bailey: The complete picture.
Barbato: The whole picture. [Laughs]
So you do get these great characters in it. You have Debbie Harry, Peter Berlin, you have Fran Lebowitz. These are amazing voices. How did you get them involved or —
Bailey: We asked them. He sought out friends who were writers, and then he asked him to write about them so I think they were happy to honor that request. I mean except for Edward Mapplethorpe, who was reluctant for a bit.
Barbato: Peter Berlin was great. We didn’t even know about him and it took a little bit of… Just because it was really funny because we just showed the film at the Castro in San Francisco and Peter was there and he’s not…he doesn’t really…
Bailey: He’s very shy.
Barbato: He’s really shy. He’s so sweet. He’s the sweetest guy but —
Bailey: He’s a legend and his work… You know those double exposure pictures? They’re by hand. He did them in-camera. And when you look at them you’re like, “How on earth…To get the position, rewind the negative, get your next position.” I mean that’s incredibly precisely done…And keep a hard-on while doing it. [Laughs] It’s pretty amazing.
That actually makes me think of this next point, which was an idea I’ve never thought of before but that comes up in the film. The idea that all these people in the ’70s are talented, but they weren’t making things or doing things because they were all just having sex. Peter says it, Jack says it, and I thought that’s a really interesting thing because there’s this fetishization of the ’70s now. And we have these documentaries, we have these books, we have these things but yet…It’s like, I can’t understand it.
Barbato: Why can’t you understand it?
Because, it just seems like a wonderland, and yet you’re like, “Oh, actually there was a lot of really creative people who maybe weren’t even creating…”
Barbato: But that’s the whole thing, because it was part of the actual sexual revolution, it was this real shift that was going on, and it was before sex was completely commodified. It was before… I mean Rolling Stone was part of what killed it all actually. No, because it was the commodification of… it went from ideas to money. It went from experience to packaging.
We explored this in Inside Deep Throat. There was this moment where sex was coming out the closet, people were fucking, people were talking about it, it was being integrated into the culture in an open way and then, I think people started to…
Partially, the political pendulum shifted, but also it’s really… it was really the commodification of sex that kind of killed that moment. We really… it hasn’t changed since, it’s so weird because you’d think 30 years later, you’d think there’d be this enormous, we would be so progressive and we would’ve come, we would’ve evolved, but not really. I mean you can see fist-fucking or whatever just by googling.
But we are even more puritanical than we were 30 years ago. So if anything, we’ve just become more of a split personality culture than an evolved one. That’s why I think like transgressive stuff, or what some people would consider transgressive, like some of Robert Mapplethorpe’s work. It’s another reason why it’s so important, it’s because we are… we are a schizophrenic culture that doesn’t, isn’t… we aren’t capable to talk about the complexity of humanity.
Well we’re capable, but it’s ashamed to talk about sex as… in terms of… you can have all the pornography you want, but to give it a place at the cultural table is forbidden. People have said to us, “Well, why are you always working in the area of sex?” And it’s like, “Well, it’s pretty important and why isn’t… why aren’t more people talking about it?” It’s not like why are we doing it, it’s like why aren’t more people doing it? Why are we so obsessed instead with orgies and violence and incredible killings? Like, why is that the main staple of entertainment? And not sex? Because without it, we wouldn’t be here, you know, for a start.
I was going to say you guys do an amazing job of not making the film into a cautionary tale or tragic tale, which some other filmmakers may have done because he dies from AIDS and like, “Oh, he did all this crazy sex and he did all these drugs and this is what happens.” How did you keep that from happening in the documentary?
Bailey: Because it’s so not the truth! It’s so not the truth and it’s not a part of the story, so we weren’t interested in putting it out that way. But his death was important because just in the same way that his life was the work of art, well obviously, his death was also going to be a part of that art. And it was, and he recognized that he knew he was dying, he was like, “This is a great opportunity to make my market, make my mark, make my market.” And he went for it. And I know this seems like a slightly weird idea, so tell me if it is, but the thing about photography is it’s always, it certainly is about life and death. You know, the moment you take a photograph, you’re capturing this moment.
And that’s why we show people with their portraits, because it’s 30 years later, and you have this beautiful magic photo of someone who’s young, and he’s Mapplethorpe with his eyes dipped, with his vision, and then you look at them and they’re still beautiful. But they’re not… there’s not a big difference.
That’s like when Carolina Herrera says in the film that Mapplethorpe told her: “You better take his photo because you’re going to regret it if you don’t.”
Barbato: Yes!
Bailey: Exactly. And Mapplethorpe did die early. But more important, we’re all going to die.
And that’s what the magic of photography is: It’s this immortalization. So that seemed to us, that’s the way to tell his story of his death. Because people say, “Oh you know, he’s a Satanist, and he’s obsessed with death.” Well no, because photography is life, is death. It is light, it is dark. You know, it’s that duality, it’s both things.
It’s funny that we’re talking about this while this poster for Vinyl is here, this is what’s on HBO right now, which is the ’70s scene, and it’s about sex and drugs and the same time period. But you guys are actually showing… I don’t know, I think it’s a time that so many people are fascinated with…
Barbato: Yeah, why do you think?
Because it seems like it that was this utopian gay time, especially a utopia of sex.
Bailey: Of course, it wasn’t. But all the nostalgia…
Barbato: Is a lie.
Bailey: It is. It is because it’s reimagining a time the way it never existed. You know and only once you’re a certain distance from it, can you have… can you take that license to reimagine it the way it wasn’t. It wasn’t shabby chic, it was just shabby. [Laughs]
Mapplethorpe was pretty rock & roll, and you talked about the commodification, and he was into the commodification.
Bailey: Yes. He’s the Madonna of the art world.
Barbato: [Claps] There you go!
Right, and I was about to say earlier, soon after he died, Madonna did her Sex book.
Barbato: Yes, She has always been a rip-off artist.
Bailey: We love her though, that’s her genius.
Barbato: There’s nothing wrong with it! We live in a sampling culture. You know Vogue. [Laughing]
Mapplethorpe never photographed her, Marcus Leatherdale did. So, tell me what you think about that though. The Madonna Sex book in relationship to the Mapplethorpe X, Y, Z book.
Barbato: Well, it’s interesting isn’t it because the X-book folio was ’78 and Madonna’s Sex book was ’92? So, there’s 14 years between them and yet…
But the controversy happened in ’91, right?
Bailey: Well, the point is, whether it was is the Seventies or the Nineties, it still got people’s knickers in a twist. I think that’s the thing. But I think the Jesse Helms controversy probably motivated her.
Barbato: ’Cause you know, I am sure that it was his work but also in particular that controversy, that probably inspired some of it… and I loved that book, Fenton had… You saved a copy.
Bailey: Ah, yes, you love that story. Someone came to stay with me…
And he opened it?
Bailey: And they opened it, because I didn’t know who it was, I only was… like years later I found it [Laughs]. Unwrapped.
It still wasn’t… it was, some of it was a little reductive, as Madonna might say.
Right.
Barbato: Well you think Sex book was?
Bailey: A little bit.
Barbato: I mean, I think the interesting thing is — and I’m just thinking out loud—we have to come to terms with this commodification thing, because Warhol as an artist, Mapplethorpe as an artist, I mean and definitely Jeff Koons, there was definitely you saw the shift from… I don’t know, a poor starving artist in my garage who doesn’t seek fame to like, “I am a businessman, I want to be famous, I want to be famous because it will increase the price of my art. I want to be a business.” I don’t think that’s… I think we get… We lose the ability to understand it when we get so obsessive with whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It changes things. But…
Bailey: I don’t. I don’t feel that way at all. I just think it confuses things when it comes to sex and sexuality. I feel like, there… that that revolution kind of lost its way. And you know, it was co-opted before being fully realized. So it didn’t sort of, it didn’t kind of permeate the mainstream. It didn’t… What is it, the pornostream? The gay stream? The mainstream? I don’t know. Trying to think of something clever.
[LAUGHING]
But ultimately, you know I think if Mapplethorpe was alive today, I think he would be fine and happy with digital… you know Grindr he would probably take as a compliment to his work.
In a way, we are comfortable with nude selfies and explicit selfies, and that… the way that his work was so shocking then, now is… has become part of the… well you know, I don’t know if mainstream is the right word.
Or even gay stream, but we’re all streaming, right? [Laughs]
Bailey: I stream, you stream, we stream. We all stream for…
You talk about it in the documentary, the lovely funny assistants say how they become anesthetized to all of it. But in a way what you are saying is, we’re all in some way… I didn’t feel shocked, maybe there was one photo.
Barbato: Yeah, which was…
The one photo that probably still shocks me is the one where it’s the arm up to almost the elbow in his ass, and it’s just right at you.
Bailey: Yes.
And just because it’s at you I think. That just… yeah. Other than that, I don’t think, maybe I’m just jaded, but I don’t feel shocked by seeing most of these images. But I also don’t feel turned on by them.
Barbato: No.
Although they can be erotic, it’s not…that’s what I remember Jesse Helms thinking is that, we’re all somehow getting turned on by seeing these images, and I didn’t think people were going to the museum to then go home and jack off.
Bailey: No.
But when he’s up there saying that and flashing pictures, it’s like that’s what he’s trying to insinuate is hat everyone’s turned on. So I guess what I’m trying to say is do you feel that we actually are anesthetized.
Barbato: I know, anesthetized.
Or that it is actually more that we’ve actually just become more open to these images because, maybe that’s the same thing [Laughs].
Bailey: Well it took, I don’t know if this answers the question, but I’ve definitely seen a lot of pornography in my time and seeing the X Portfolio when we filmed it was really…
Barbato: Intense.
Bailey: Intense. Not shocking, but just — wow. Because I think it’s the sequence of the images.
And you actually show that, which is lovely.
Barbato: Well we take you through…You get to experience —
Bailey: The context and the frame, And the red sheets. And I think the curator didn’t even know there were red sheets in between.
Barbato: I think he did. For the record.
Bailey: For the record, “He did.” [LAUGHS].
Barbato: But those red sheets make such a difference. It’s like part of the work.
Bailey: I think seeing the X Portfolio is still incredible.
So actually what you’re saying then is, even though we’re seeing it on film, seeing it in real life is something that…
Bailey: I think it is all about context, because it’s either seeing it, seeing the actual print, seeing it in the context of a museum.
Barbato: Seeing it, like we’re anesthetized… With some of the hardcore porno imagery, in the context of watching something on our laptop in the privacy of our own room in a completely closeted way. What Mapplethorpe was doing was putting it out there in a very public way.
In a collective viewing experience. So that’s, that really to me is still, there is still a disconnect. We have…You know things have changed so much since then because we have access to everything and we experience everything. But they haven’t changed so much in that, that experience is still totally closeted, totally private. And so we still haven’t evolved. That’s why his transgressive work is still so important, I think. Because it’s still, for most people, they’re either not aware of it or it exists in the closet or maybe they’ll see it online. But it’s in the context of the public, out, open experience that it is the most significant, I think it does cause… Even in Berlin when we showed the film, there were moments, “Because we were like, ‘Oh we’re in Berlin, they’re gonna…’ and they did love the film. But after the premiere, someone in the audience… like the audience was kind of aghast almost.
Bailey: I was very surprised about that.
Barbato: It really connected them deeply and someone in the audience said that…there was a German word that I don’t know…
Bailey: Oh… assault of the senses.
Barbato: That the film was like an assault of the senses and they were actually, they were trying to describe the feeling that everyone in the audience, and the people in the audience were like agreeing so… [LAUGHS]
So one of the things that’s funny about watching curators, like picking apart his art because they’re looking at this man with a bullwhip in his ass and they are talking about it as if…
Barbato: They’re talking about the contrast of the paper.
Bailey: But you know what. I had a revelation. ’Cause I was thinking about the curators and the words around the pictures — like when they talk about that in that way — are absolutely crucial. They serve as a kind of frame or as a kind of buffer, they.
Barbato: Buffer.
Bailey: They give you that permission to view it. That’s absolutely crucial.
Barbato: ’Cause there’s that…You know this is why Mapplethorpe wanted to be in museums and galleries…
And to be written about.
Barbato: And to be written about because that language wasn’t ridiculous at all, wasn’t… “Oh aren’t they silly or pretentious?” It’s absolutely crucial to frame the work and that’s why in a way the… yeah…
Bailey: That’s why he was a singular artist but a serial collaborator. He needed people to write about his work. He needed people to collaborate with to elevate what he was doing…
Barbato: Yes.
Bailey: To the next level.
Barbato: Because if he had said it himself — If he had written it himself — people wouldn’t believe him. It was just the same way that he chose Wagstaff as the person to say, “You know photography is art.” So he needs other voices to talk about the work in these terms.
Bailey: Not because he can’t.
Barbato: Not because he can’t. Because he could do, but nobody would believe him.
That’s why the Carol Squiers interview is really good because she realizes he’s complicit in that. She’s like, “I didn’t have the language, I had to come up with it.” Then I really love when she realizes, when she criticizes him for the Lisa Lyon stuff and she’s like, “Maybe I went too far.” He didn’t want me to actually be critical.
Barbato: She’s right by the way.
It does look dated, but at the same time you get it. She seems like a perfect subject in the sense of a woman with masculinity; like he’s a man with femininity. So, it has this gender fluidity which I think is great.
Bailey: Well I think that’s always the challenge. Like how do you communicate and really experience as a viewer how different it was then? Because again I completely forgotten that the idea of a female bodybuilder was a grotesque thing. I remember thinking, “How freakish, how freakishly unnatural.” You know because we’re all so programmed and acculturated.
Yeah. You know she’s not soft looking.
Bailey: Yeah. But we never… We’re so used to it now. Like Madonna. She’s like a bodybuilder. It was freakish then.
I do want to get something on the record about Patti, which is where did the archival material come from?
Bailey: They stole it.
Barbato: No, I think she…
It was great though. I loved it. New to me.
Bailey: I think there were two different sources. I can’t remember what they were. But, we just talked a lot about…In promoting the book she did a number of talks around the country and from one of those and I think there was a BBC documentary about her some years ago. I think those are the two main sources.
Barbato: It took a few minutes though because most stuff with her is highly restricted. So we were very happy when we found two things that she hadn’t…
Bailey: But I suppose the interesting thing is…I mean, put it this way: Mapplethorpe wanted lots of people to write and to talk about it and to tell his story. I don’t think he ever intended for only one person to be the voice, maybe other than his.
