Warning: Adult Content – The relationship between Sam Wagstaff, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Patti Smith

Yale-educated and born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Sam Wagstaff’s transformation from innovative museum curator to Robert Mapplethorpe’s lover and patron is intensively probed in BLACK WHITE AND GRAY. During the heady years of the 1970s and 1980s, the New York City art scene was abuzz with a new spirit, and Mapplethorpe would be at the center of it. Wagstaff pulled him from his suburban Queens existence, gave him a camera and brought him into this art world that seemed to be waiting for him, creating the man whose infamous images instilled emotions ranging from awe to anger. In turn, Mapplethorpe brought the formerly starched-shirt preppie to the world of drugs and gay S-and-M sex, well-documented in his still-startling photographs. Twenty five years separated the lovers, but their relationship was symbiotic to its core, and the two remained together forever. The film also explores the relationship both men had with musician/poet Patti Smith, whose 1975 debut album “Horses” catapulted her to fame.

Black, White and Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe

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Black, White and Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe

Release Year: 2008

Duration: 77 min

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Related: Life & Culture, Music & Arts, Politics, Virgil Films & Entertainment

Yale-educated and born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Sam Wagstaff’s transformation from innovative museum curator to Robert Mapplethorpe’s lover and patron is intensively probed in BLACK WHITE AND GRAY. During the heady years of the 1970s and 1980s, the New York City art scene was abuzz with a new spirit, and Mapplethorpe would be at the center of it. Wagstaff pulled him from his suburban Queens existence, gave him a camera and brought him into this art world that seemed to be waiting for him, creating the man whose infamous images instilled emotions ranging from awe to anger. In turn, Mapplethorpe brought the formerly starched-shirt preppie to the world of drugs and gay S-and-M sex, well-documented in his still-startling photographs. Twenty five years separated the lovers, but their relationship was symbiotic to its core, and the two remained together forever. The film also explores the relationship both men had with musician/poet Patti Smith, whose 1975 debut album “Horses” catapulted her to fame.

Director

James Crump

Writer

James Crump

Producer

James Crump

Narrator

Joan Juliet Buck

Cast

Truman Capote

Dominick Dunne

Henry Geldzahler

Ralph Gibson

Robert Mapplethorpe

Eugenia Parry

Patti Smith

Richard Tuttle

Sam Wagstaff

Sound

Matt Gundy - sound re-recording mixer

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