Robert Mapplethorpe was born in 1946 in New York and died in Boston in 1989.

Robert Mapplethorpe the extraordinary, controversial proponent of the American avant-garde remains an anticonformist symbol of a timeless form of the contemporary. He managed to embody an extreme sense of freedom, and this consistently emerges in the interactions between his artistic practice, the private and intimate aspects of his personal life, his circle of friends, celebrities and the public. There is always something new to be discovered working through the immensely rich patrimony of perspectives and points of view that the artist has left us through his body of work, which continues to surprise us through changes of taste and time, always keeping a formidable balance between the current and the timeless. An extraordinary grace is found in unpredictable layers, in aspects of life that can only be revealed by crossing boundaries, flirting with pleasure and delight as much as with the unconventional, while shedding a light on the appearance of things that never hides the darker side.

His work has appeared in countless solo exhibitions in institutions around the world, starting with the great retrospective devoted to him by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1988. That same year Mapplethorpe established the Foundation that bears his name, in order to promote photography, support Museums that exhibit photographic art, and to raise funds for medical research to combat AIDS/HIV and related diseases.

The artist's work can be found in the collections of the greatest international museums and his historic and social importance continues to be the subject of prominent exhibitions around the world.

Artist's CV
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