Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia announces the opening of the exhibition MAPPLETHORPE - VON GLOEDEN. Beauty and Desire, at the Museo Novecento in Florence, from September 23, 2023, to February 14, 2024*.
Curated by Sergio Risaliti, together with Eva Francioli and Muriel Prandato.

The exhibition pays tribute to one of the leading figures in 20th-century photography, Robert Mapplethorpe (New York, 1946 – Boston, 1989), in an unprecedented comparison with the photographs of Wilhelm von Gloeden and a selection of photographs from the Alinari archive.

The project was organised with the fundamental contribution of the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation and of the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia.

Beauty and Desire draws inspiration from a substantial body of work that highlights Mapplethorpe's intense artistic output, emphasising the link between his research and classicism, as well as his sculptural approach to photography, evident both in his study of the male and female nude and in his still lifes.Starting from this focus, Robert Mapplethorpe's work is compared with some photographs dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from the Alinari Archives. Among these, some images by Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (Wismar, 1856 – Taormina, 1931), one of the pioneers of staged photography, take on special significance. One of the distinctive features of the atmospheres that animate von Gloeden's compositions is precisely the reference to the past, conceived as an inexhaustible source of subjects and suggestions: a unique stylistic trait that still makes him an icon today.
Although inspired by classical canons, Mapplethorpe and von Gloeden's photographs seem to follow unexpected and sometimes disturbing aesthetic trajectories, raising and resolving questions about the body and sexuality whose echoes resonate, at times unchanged, in contemporary visual culture.

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The exhibition is promoted by the Municipality of Florence, in collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation and the Fondazione Alinari per la Fotografia. Organization by MUS.E. Thanks to AON Spa and Unicoop Firenze.

*Given its huge success with the public, the exhibition has been extended until 6 March 2024.