New York:
Capital of the 20th Century

by Kenneth Goldsmith
Verso ©2015

MAPPLETHORPE

pages 501-537

Kenneth Goldsmith’s Capital: New York, Capital of the 20th Century (Verso, 2015) is composed entirely of quotations — histories, memoirs, newspaper articles, government documents, even emails — assembled into a mosaic portrait of the city, modeled on Walter Benjamin’s unfinished Arcades Project. Among its thematic chapters (Sex, Central Park, Commodity, Gentrification) is a 36-page section devoted to Robert Mapplethorpe, drawing on Jack Fritscher’s writing as Mapplethorpe’s Drummer editor and the author of Mapplethorpe: Assault with a Deadly Camera.