Edward Enninful curates Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac Paris

Edward Enninful, former British Vogue editor, curated a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac in Paris from March 2 to April 2. The show featured 46 photographs selected from Mapplethorpe's archive, organized in pairs resembling Vogue editorial spreads. Enninful's curation avoided Mapplethorpe's most controversial and sexually explicit work, focusing instead on fashion portraits and safer imagery. Notable inclusions were two 1982 portraits of bodybuilder Lisa Lyon—one in a wedding dress, another nude with a veil—and 1984 images of model Dovanna with Karl Lagerfeld. The exhibition omitted Mapplethorpe's BDSM-themed photographs and racial provocations, such as images from his 1986 book 'The Black Book'. Enninful, a Ghanaian-born British fashion figure, discovered Mapplethorpe through that publication but selected only a few non-controversial images of Black subjects. The show included familiar Mapplethorpe works like Patti Smith's 1975 'Horses' album cover and portraits of Paloma Picasso. Enninful's approach presented Mapplethorpe's formalist style without the shock value, framing it through a fashion lens.