Robert Mapplethorpe: Choreography for an Exhibition

The exhibition dedicated to the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe coincides with the 30th anniversary of the traveling solo exhibition “The Perfect Moment“, which opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in 1988, just few months before the artist’s death. “Choreography for an Exhibition” focuses in an unprecedented way on the intimate performative and dynamic matrix of Mapplethorpe’s subjects, which defy the static nature of photographic shots. This dynamism along with an erotic and intellectual vibration, expresses itself both in the concept as well as in the structure of the images presented. They are on view divided into three sections which reconfigure the museum’s architecture: while the first chapter (“Ouverture”) welcomes the public with theatrical-inspired pictures of dancers, athletes, body-builders and models, the second one features series of portraits, comprehensive of self-portraits of the artist himself. The last section, in the end, reconstructs the artist’s studio dynamics and exhibits the pictures with erotic subjects.

The exhibition is enriched by a performative programme, conceived as a “dance” which brings international choreographers to interact with the photographies  exhibited through their site-specific and newly commissioned interventions.