Robert Mapplethorpe. Le forme della bellezza

The Ara Pacis Museum is hosting the final leg of an important travelling exhibition dedicated to the renowned American photographer, one of the leading masters of the 20th century.

The over 200 photographs on display explore the concept of beauty as artistic perfection, intensity and formal rigour. Every shot taken by Robert Mapplethorpe with his Hasselblad was the result of a meticulous process in which nothing was left to chance and every detail was orchestrated with precision to shape reality according to an idea and a vision. Human bodies, faces and still lifes are treated with the same obsessive attention to light and geometry, giving rise to images that transcend time and space.

The Rome exhibition features the great masterpieces that have captivated visitors in Venice and Milan over recent months. These include the self-portraits, the photographs dedicated to his muses Patti Smith and Lisa Lyon, the portraits of famous figures from the worlds of art, literature, music and cinema (Yoko Ono, Robert Rauschenberg, Donald Sutherland, David Byrne, Richard Gere), and the series of flowers and still lifes, which are counterbalanced by his most famous and sensual shots of male and female nudes, immortalised by the camera as if carved from marble.

Finally, one section of the exhibition focuses on Mapplethorpe’s deep connection with Italy and his encounter with antiquity. The exhibition features two classical sculptures from the Capitoline Museums – the Statue of Aphrodite, dating from between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, and the Statue of an Athlete from the 1st century AD, a copy of a Greek original from the 5th century BC.