Robert Mapplethorpe, Derrick Cross, 1985, gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 in. © 1985 Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. (web image)
FLORENCE.- “The most beautiful Mapplethorpe show I’ve ever seen,” exclaimed Patti Smith at the grand opening (May 25) for “Robert Mapplethorpe. Perfection in Form.” Standing at the feet of Michelangelo’s David, and flanked by Mapplethorpe’s photographs of male nudes, Smith added, “This show is the realization of Robert’s dream.” Mapplethorpe's first muse and companion, Smith provided the spark for the exhibition. Visiting the museum in 2007 with Renaissance art historian Jonathan Nelson, she explained that Mapplethorpe adored Michelangelo. Nelson, together with Franca Falletti, director of the Galleria dell’Accademia, curated the exhibition dedicated to the internationally acclaimed American photographer on the twentieth anniversary of his death. At the opening, Michael Ward Stout –president of the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation— proclaimed the exhibition “the most important event in Mapplethorpe's artistic life.” For Edward Mapplethorpe, Robert’s brother and former assistant, and a photographer himself, “Displaying these works side-by-side is deeply moving; the silence, beauty, and arrangement are striking.” ...
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