If you hurry, you still have time to catch an exhibition by photographer Robert
Mapplethorpe that includes many lesser known works. The exhibition at the
Alison Jacques Gallery in London is curated by his friend, the UK artist David
Hockney. The show comprises around 60 photographs taken between 1975 and 1988.
Mapplethorpe, who died from an Aids-related illness in 1988, is widely regarded
as one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century.
This exhibition includes portraits of Mapplethorpe's creative contemporaries
including the artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, writer William Burroughs,
pop icons Patti Smith and Iggy Pop and youthful pictures of actors Richard
Gere and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Mapplethorpe exhibition runs until 12 March. Alison Jacques Gallery,
4 Clifford Street, London W1 Tuesday to Saturday 10am-6pm.
More than a book
I Die but the Memory Lives by the celebrated Swedish detective writer Henning
Mankell draws on the work of the influential memory book project. The concept
of memory books started in the early 1990s among HIV-infected African parents
living in the UK eager to share memories, important information and thoughts
with their children and relatives before they died. The idea was taken up
in the late 1990s in Uganda where it spread, especially among women.
Traditionally, African parent and grandparents pass on information about their
family histories to their children as oral stories. But as the number of Aids
orphans in Africa grew, it became clear many would grow up without this oral
tradition and many faced a crisis of identity about who they were and where
they came from. Memory books fulfil a number of roles: passing on education
about HIV to help children protect themselves; enabling to children to understand
their roots and setting down wills and care arrangements for those surviving.
In this book Mankell crafts a simple and powerful fable around Aida, a young
African girl who plants a mango tree which she nurtures, like a memory book,
to grow and outlive the current global crisis. At one point the author comments:
“These memory books, small exercise books with pasted-in pictures and
texts written by people who could barely recite the alphabet, could prove
to be the most important documents our time has produced.”
I Die but the Memory Lives On is translated from Swedish. Price £5.99 Harvill
Press ISBN 1-84343-207-2
‘Less is more’ is a formula used to great effect in Positively
Artistic, a book of artworks by people affected by HIV. The collection was
born out of a successful collaboration between people living with HIV in Wakefield,
West Yorkshire, and community artist Adele Jackson.
Collages and paintings
with writings reflect the thoughts, feelings and experiences of the artists
and address prejudice, loss, stigma medication, and fear.
Positively Artistic, price £15 plus £1 p&p, is available from
the HIV charity Begin on 01924 211117 begin@care4free.net. All proceeds go
to the charity's support fund which provides grants to people with HIV.
Raw and revealing
Mike Bliss, an expressive artist living with HIV, says he aims to
gives viewers a voyeuristic insight into his psyche and emotions and take
them on a “journey to catharsis.” Bliss makes extensive use of
nudes in his portraits to increase the feeling of intimacy.
Mike has previously shown work at the Globe Centre, East London, and at the
Dublin Love Art festival. One of his images was recently used as a cover shot
for the art magazine X. He says: “My work is expressive and earnest,
raw and revealing. 
My view of the world is coloured by my experiences and I dare the viewer to
relish the pain and the ecstasy, the horror and my daily triumphs.”
To find out more visit www.mikesbliss.4t.com
