Firenze,
Accademia Gallery
In Collaboration with the Mapplethorpe Foundation

26 may - 27 september 2009

Curated by: Franca Falletti e Jonathan Nelson

Photographs by Mapplethorpe in the museum of Michelangelo, the temple of Form. Twenty years since the artist's death, the Accademia Gallery celebrates his talent with an exhibition of 91 images, for the first time compared to the most emblematic Renaissance icons. The studied poses of Lisa, Lydia, Ken, Tyler, Thomas and Ajitto point out a constructional procedure of a sculptural type and, in a certain sense, reference the David and the masterpieces of Florentine painting. Between the human body and the still-life, two worlds engage in a dialogue beyond time, space, and cultures. The XX century looks for answers in the civilisation of Humanism.
To cite Michelangelo and Renaissance art in regards to Mapplethorpe is anything but a novelty. Many stop at the occasional and superficial similarity of positions, muscles and forms, but the true analogy lies in the profound instance that leads to the creative act, in the need to dominate nature through an imposed rule, free of the artist's emotional or optical point of view. "My work is about order", said Mapplethorpe and added, "I am looking for perfection in form".
These considerations lead to the theorem that lies at the basis of this exhibition, the assumption that provides the key of interpretation: a true rupture between classical art and contemporary art does not exist. Historical phases do exist (and the XX century is one of them) in which the changes in conceiving and perceiving the artistic creation are faster and more radical. And yet, there remains a continuity in relation to which the great artists of the past and those of today (the past of yesterday) can always find a shared language, though with different sensitivities.
Consequently, the choice of the works to exhibit fell on photographs in which the artist best expresses his classical sensitivity in the construction of an abstract and synthetic form, in itself an expression of perfection. The exhibition therefore offers the opportunity to reflect once again on a fundamental theme for the artists of all times and, in particular, for Michelangelo, for whom Mapplethorpe always showed a great interest: the theme of form and its relation to the Idea it contains.
The photographs are divided into five sections, four in the exhibition area, and one in another part of the Museum. Each section confronts an aspect of the single great theme of Form intended as a value in itself, separated from objective content, that is from the subject represented, as well as from the artist's personal experience (emotional, cognitive, or what have you), which is diffused by means of the image: sculptural Form, the geometry of Form, the Form and its double, the fragment as Form.
The 91 works by Mapplethorpe are joined by several works by Michelangelo (four drawings and a sketch, in addition to the David, Four Prisoners and the painting Venus and Cupid) and the Rape of the Sabines by Giambologna. The exhibition is completed by works by artists that Mapplethorpe referenced throughout the course of his life and work (Brice Marden, Man Ray, Ettore Spalletti and Andy Warhol).



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