THE second leg of Dublin's major Mapplethorpe show rounds off the picture, if that does not resemble a weak pun. It leaves no reasonable doubt as to his considerable talent(s), but it does leave a few questions about certain areas of his output, or his psyche if you prefer.

The word "pornography" has been played with in this connection, which I take to imply that Mapplethorpe was not above employing some quasi commercial sexual titillation. Well, he had to earn a living, and the sector of New York taste which he represented, and largely worked for, demanded a certain sexual frisson or shock value. Sex had to be fitted into the newest radical chic, and inevitably some of this has dated. Certain of these pictures, to be frank, already begin to look pretty silly - though the innate element of High Camp is possibly angled towards this anyway.

There are some admirable portraits of Warhol, Louise Bourgeois, William Burroughs etc, and he probably could have made a good living in this field alone. However, Mapplethorpe liked being his own choreographer, arranging the nude body (male and female) in the most telling poses and the most effective lighting, with a minimum of background or detail. These are scarcely erotic photographs, they are in fact almost abstract, and again it is obvious how instinctively he leaned towards a contemporary form of Neo Classicism. (The two headless nudes of a female model with a Chinese name are particularly fine).

The various flower pieces include some colour shots in which the virtually monochrome backgrounds again stress their abstract qualities. Austere, elegant and virtually Minimalist, they emphasise how Mapplethorpe relates to the American painting of his time. He was very much of the New York School, in fact, and I am increasingly convinced that he owed a considerable debt to Andy Warhol - not in technique, perhaps, but in approach and emotions poise.