Robert Mapplethorpe. Le forme del desiderio

At Palazzo Reale, Robert Mapplethorpe. Le forme del desiderio (The forms of desire) opens to the public, an extensive retrospective featuring over 200 of the American photographer’s most iconic and unconventional works. Promoted by the Municipality of Milan–Culture and organized in collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation in New York, the exhibition is curated by Denis Curti. It is part of the Milan Cortina 2026 Cultural Olympiad and represents the second chapter of an exhibition trilogy, following Venice and preceding Rome.

The exhibition traces the artist’s entire evolution, from his experimental beginnings to his celebrated nudes, from portraits to floral still lifes, and through to his dialogue with classical sculpture. On view are the late-1960s collages, the intense portraits of Patti Smith and Lisa Lyon, the self-portraits exploring identity and illness, and the faces of figures such as Andy Warhol and Isabella Rossellini. Central to the exhibition is Mapplethorpe’s aesthetic investigation of the body, sculpted by light in black-and-white images of rigorous formal perfection.

Thanks to the Hasselblad camera he received from his partner and mentor Sam Wagstaff, Mapplethorpe achieved the “marble-like” precision that established him among the great photographers of the twentieth century, beyond provocation and censorship. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Marsilio Arte and the podcast Mapplethorpe Unframed.