Beyond the Binary - Representing Queer Bodies in Mid to Late 20th Century American Photography in the Works of Diane Arbus and Robert Mapplethorpe

Anić, Ivana. (2014). Beyond the Binary - Representing Queer Bodies in Mid to Late 20th Century American Photography in the Works of Diane Arbus and Robert Mapplethorpe. BSc thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of English Language and Literature. [mentor Cvek, Sven].

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Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to discuss the representation of gender non-conforming individuals in the works of American photographers Diane Arbus and Robert Mapplethorpe and whether their approach endorsed or challenged the prevalent attitudes in the 1960s and 1970s American society towards homosexual and transgender individuals. I used the insights of history of sex, queer theory, feminist theory, theory of photography and psychoanalysis as the starting point for the discussion, and later examined Arbus’ portraits of ‘transvestites’ and Mapplethorpe’s Self-portrait with Whip from 1978. I contrasted Arbus’ spectatorial and biased approach to homosexual and transsexual subjectivity with Mapplethorpe’s participatory photographic practices.

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