Mapplethorpe (III)

"Realizing that gay S&M practices hadn’t been photographed in an artistic way before, he found a subject matter that suited him. He loved sex. He loved photography, and now he could combine the two" - Patricia Morrisroe

Battleground

"Sex itself is only one aspect of sexual dependency. Pleasure becomes the motivation, but the real satisfaction is romantic. Bed becomes a forum in which struggles in a relationship are defused or intensified. Sex isn't about performance; it's about a certain kind of communication founded on trust and exposure and vulnerability that can't be expressed in any other way. Sex becomes a microcosm of the relationship, the battleground, an exorcism" - Nan Goldin

Exposed

"I realized that teenagers are the same everywhere that they're exposed to Western culture. Everybody has to deal with sex and drugs and parties and trying to be cool and rebelling against authority. Being a teenager can be very exciting, sometimes frightening, but also lonely and boring. I found myself drawn to the quiet moments that I felt expressed these ideas without being sensational or melodramatic about it" - Collin Lafleche 

Ichiba

"Humans simultaneously combine tenderness and violence. If you peel back the face of a beautiful woman, you see it is clogged with viscera. Choosing to create work that is only beautiful feels artificial. Thus I paint both. You cannot sever the two. The expression that results is a natural chaos. In my work I project chaos, anarchy, anxiety, the grotesque, the absurd, and the irrational. By doing so, I attain harmony. This is my art" - Daisuke Ichiba