Mapplethorpe and von Glöden: Beauty and Desire at Museo Novecento

The Museo Novecento in Florence presents 'Beauty and Desire', a comparative exhibition of photographers Wilhelm von Glöden and Robert Mapplethorpe, curated by Sergio Risaliti with Eva Francioli and Muriel Prandato, in collaboration with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation and Fondazione Alinari per la fotografia. The show juxtaposes around fifty Mapplethorpe works with von Glöden's images, exploring their shared fascination with classical and Renaissance ideals of the nude, particularly the male body. Both artists, despite being separated by 90 years (von Glöden born 1856 in northern Germany, Mapplethorpe in 1946 in New York), exhibit a transgressive eroticism and anti-academic stance. The exhibition highlights their engagement with archetypes from Christian iconography and European art history, which curator Risaliti describes as 'Pathosformeln' in the Warburgian sense. Mapplethorpe's self-portraits evoke Lucifer/Dionysus, while von Glöden's echo Dürer's Christ. Alinari photographs of sculptures serve as a bridge between the two. The show marks 40 years since Mapplethorpe's first Florence exhibition at Palazzo Antonelli Augusti Castracane, which Risaliti recalls as a shock in the post-Anni di Piombo era, amid the AIDS crisis. The current exhibition emphasizes the enduring relevance of their luminous, non-pornographic corporeality in a time of renewed puritanism.