American photographer. Mapplethorpe studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, beginning with drawing, painting, and sculpture, though he later gravitated to photography. He is known for his highly stylized black and white photography depicting artists, musicians, celebrities, pornographic film stars, male and female nudes, and still lifes of flowers. The homoerotic undertone of many of his pieces caused his work to come under fire during the Culture Wars, a national debate over public funding sponsoring controversial artwork. The portrait of two men embracing, bound by gauze, a fragile material associated with injuries or death, is emblematic of that controversy.