Black White + Gray

Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe
Directed by James Crump
Produced by James Crump
Stanley F. Buchthal
Maja Hoffmann
David Koh
Written by James Crump
Starring Sam Wagstaff
Robert Mapplethorpe
Patti Smith
Gordon Baldwin
Joan Juliet Buck
Dick Cavett
Dominick Dunne
Philippe Garner
Ralph Gibson
John Giorno
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
John Richardson
Ingrid Sischy
Holly Solomon
John Szarkowski
Pierre Apraxine
Raymond Foye
Jeffrey Fraenkel
Tukey Koffend
Jean-Jacques Naudet
Eugenia Parry
Paul Walter
Clark Worswick
Release dates
Running time
 77 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe is a 2007 American documentary film directed by James Crump.[1] The film chronicles the symbiotic relationship between Sam Wagstaff, an American museum curator and collector of fine art, and Robert Mapplethorpe, the American fine art photographer whose controversial images were at the center of debate about public funding for the arts and the culture wars of the late 1980s.[2][3] The film also explores the relationship both men shared with poet/musician Patti Smith in the New York art world of the 1970s.[4]

Reception

Stephen Holden of The New York Times reviewed Black White + Gray, calling it, "a potent exercise in art-world mythography that might be nicknamed 'The Prince and the Punk.'"[5] Vince Aletti pronounced the film "fascinating" in The New Yorker's Critic's Notebook, writing "Savvy, charismatic, and devilishly handsome, Wagstaff found the perfect foil and goad in Mapplethorpe, but it was the collector, not the photographer, who left the most indelible and idiosyncratic mark on the medium they shared."[6] James Christopher declared in The Times of London, "This is a terrific documentary by James Crump about the unsung collector, Wagstaff, and his lopsided relationship with his hungry young lover, Mapplethorpe."[7] Writing for Crave, Sundance Fellow and film critic, Ernest Hardy pronounced, "Crump’s willingness to present a dissenting voice to what might otherwise come off as an almost fairy-tale pairing might seem an obvious directorial choice, but as documentaries slide more and more into blatant hagiography, it’s a relief to find a filmmaker inserting grainier perspectives for a grainier film."[8] Philip Gefter, a biographer of Sam Wagstaff, wrote about the film for The New York Times in anticipation of its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.[9]

Release

The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on May 1, 2007 and theatrically via Arthouse Films on October 19, 2007.[10][11]

References

  1. ↑ David Jenkins, Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe, Time Out, August 13, 2008
  2. ↑ Jay Weisberg, Review of Black White + Gray, Variety Magazine, May 7, 2007
  3. ↑ Janice Page, The dark allure of cultural outlaws, The Boston Globe, April 6, 2008
  4. ↑ Earnest Hardy, Art Doc of the Week | Black White + Gray, CRAVEN, August 25, 2015
  5. ↑ Stephen Holden, A Collector and His Polaroid Passions, The New York Times, October 19, 2007
  6. ↑ Vince Aletti, The Collector, The New Yorker, October 22, 2007
  7. ↑ James Christopher, Review: Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe, The Times, August 14 2008
  8. ↑ Ernest Hardy, Doc of the Week | Black White + Gray, Crave, August 25, 2015
  9. ↑ Philip Gefter, The Man Who Made Mapplethorpe, The New York Times, April 24, 2007
  10. ↑ Tribeca Film Festival Film Guide Archive
  11. ↑ Paul Ohan, Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe, Huffington Post, May 3, 2007

External links

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